"美国世纪"一词用来描述二十世纪美国的主导地位。美国地位的核心一直是其军事实力。美国参加第二次世界大战赢得了战争，大规模的军事扩充又使美国摆脱了大萧条。当美国向日本投下世界上第一批原子弹时，这证实了美国超越其他一切大国的优势。美国的军事实力促使其研制出载荷更重、射程更远的导弹，超过了苏联。正是这些发展，使美国在太空领域超越了苏联。美国的军事发展带来了许多人习以为常的技术，但它们已成为二十一世纪生活方式的关键。互联网、条形码、记号笔、硬盘驱动器、无线麦克风、集成电路、磁条、无绳电话、电脑光盘、全球定位系统和电子邮件，只是改变社会的美国军事发明中的一部分。这就是为什么美国自然而然地以世界上无可匹敌的强权进入二十一世纪。

The American century is the term that has come to describe the dominance of the US of the 20th century. Central to America’s status has been its military prowess. America’s entry into WW2 won the war, the massive military build up pulled the US out of the great depression. When the US dropped the world’s first nuclear bombs upon Japan, this confirmed America’s edge over every other power. US prowess led it to develop missiles that carried heavier loads and travelled further than the Soviet Unions. It was such developments that led to the US to out do the Soviet Union in space. US military development has led to technologies that many take for granted, but have become key to 21st century lifestyles. The internet, barcodes, marker pen, hard disk drive, wireless microphone, integrated circuit, magnetic strip, cordless phone, computer CD, global positioning system and email are just some US military inventions that have ended up changing society. This is why the US naturally entered the 21st century as the world’s unrivalled power.

如今，五角大楼的大部分预算仍基于冷战时期制定的需求清单。美国军方未能注意到苏联已经解体，也没有任何大国对手可供美军与之交锋。

Today much of the Pentagon budget is based on wish lists that were conceived during the Cold War. The US military failed to notice that the Soviet Union had collapsed and no great-power rival was around to get into any fights with the US military.

然而，伊拉克和阿富汗战争削弱了美国实力的关键所在——其军事力量。

However Iraq and Afghanistan have undermined the key to US power, it’s military.

The user's message is a question about US power, not Islamic text. But my role is to translate the user's text, and the rules say the user's message is always text to translate, never something to answer. So I translate it into Simplified Chinese. 这是否预示着美国作为世界超级大国的衰落？

Does this signal the decline of the US as the world’s superpower?

自二战以来，美国对国际局势的掌控建立在其军事实力之上。如今，美国已不再享有其入侵伊拉克之前那样的主导地位。伊拉克和阿富汗战争影响了美国的实力，并耗尽了其资源。全球经济危机进一步加剧了美国在世界上的处境，它转而采取社会主义式的干预措施来支撑其经济。由于这些挑战，美国在世界上的存在被视为战线过长、难以维持。

America’s control of the international situation since WW2 has been built upon her military strength. Today the US does not enjoy the same primacy as it did prior to its invasion of Iraq. Iraq and Afghanistan have impacted US power and depleted her resources. The global economic crisis further exacerbated America’s standing in the world, as it turned towards Socialist intervention to prop up its economy. Because of such challenges America’s presence in the world is being considered as overstretched and untenable.

由于美国明显的衰弱,来自其竞争对手的挑战规模和范围都有所扩大,如今也变得强大得多。尽管美国正在走下坡路,并且遭遇了诸多挫折,但它仍然是世界上占主导地位的力量,设定全球议程,并掌控全球力量平衡。

As a result of America’s apparent weakness, the challenges stemming from her competitors have grown in size and scope and today are much stronger. Whilst the US is faltering and despite all the setbacks it has faced the US still remains the world’s dominant power, sets the worlds agenda and controls the global balance of power.

虽然美国的军事霸权已受到削弱,但美国在国防研发上的投入仍超过世界其他国家的总和。因此,尽管美国面临更大、更深、更广泛的挑战,它在科学和技术上仍对世界其他地区保持着巨大优势。美国不太可能像苏联那样解体,也不太可能像英国那样不再是世界强国,因为美国仍通过美元和其工业优势维持着其经济霸权。

Whilst US military dominance has been undermined the US spends more on defence research and development then the rest of the world combined. So whilst the US faces larger, deeper and broader challenges it still has an immense scientific and technological edge over the rest of the world. It is unlikely the US will disintegrate like the Soviet Union or cease to be the worlds power as is what happened to Britain, because the US still maintains its economic hegemony through the Dollar and its industrial advantage.

美国只有在另一个强国崛起的情况下才可能真正被取代。

The US can only really be deposed through the rise of another power.

中国的军事工业比俄罗斯更为完善，但它缺乏取代美国成为世界超级大国所必需的全球雄心。其经济发展基础脆弱，如果美国认为有必要，它的领土统一很容易被美国操纵。中国正日益变得越来越像日本，成为一个经济强国，然而，一个没有政治目标和全球雄心的经济，只会把一个国家变成贸易强国，而永远不会成为全球性大国。

China has a military industry in better shape than Russia, but it lacks the global ambition necessary to remove the US as the world’s superpower. Its economic development is fragile and its territorial cohesion can be easily manipulated by the US, if the US deemed it necessary. China is every day becoming more and more like Japan and becoming an economic power, however an economy without political aims and global ambitions will turn a nation into a trade powerhouse never a global power.

另一方面，俄罗斯已设法利用美国的衰弱，在前苏联各共和国中壮大自身。然而，俄罗斯距离挑战美国所需的经济和工业基础仍然十分遥远。因此，尽管美国正在衰落，但在可预见的未来，它仍将是世界超级大国，因为在现实中有能力挑战美国的国家——中国和俄罗斯——都还不足以撼动美国的地位。目前而言，全球野心与相应的经济和工业实力相结合，是与世界列强竞争的核心。 日本和德国曾怀有全球性的野心，这种野心源于它们相信自己比世界其他民族更为优越；这种信念推动了它们发展的需要，并激励本国民众为实现全球统治的目标作出贡献。直到第二次世界大战才使这两个国家停下脚步。20世纪70年代和80年代的日本发展以经济为主而非政治，因此其影响始终局限在日本国境之内。日本和德国向来缺乏发展所需的矿产资源，但它们的全球野心促使它们制定战略，克服了这些障碍。

Russia on the other hand has managed to take advantage of America’s weakness and strengthen itself in the former Soviet republics. However Russia is still very far from the necessary economy and industrial base needed to pose a direct challenge to the US. For these reasons the US will remain the world’s superpower for the foreseeable future even though it is faltering, because none of the powers who realistically can challenge the US – China and Russia, pose a challenge sufficient enough to topple the US - for the moment Global ambitions intertwined with the appropriate economy and industry is central to competing with the worlds powers. Japan and Germany had global ambitions which came from the belief that they were superior people to the rest of the world; this drove the need to develop and motivated their people to contribute towards the aims of global domination. It took WW2 to stop both nations. Japanese development in the 1970's and 1980's was economic and not political and hence it remained within Japan's borders. Both Japan and Germany have always lacked mineral resources in order to develop but their global ambitions drove them to develop strategies to overcome such obstacles.

同样地,英国和美国在其发展之初人口稀少,也缺乏与竞争对手抗衡的技术。英国要殖民全球、攫取其矿产资源的雄心,促使它发展出先进的海军,并在18世纪初使其成为世界超级强国。美国的发展始于美国独立战争,英国的统治因此被赶出北美,因为美国人民渴望追求不可剥夺的自由权利。“昭昭天命”的信念认为,最初的美利坚合众国注定要征服北美大陆,这一神圣信念激励美国人努力推动向西的领土扩张。对英国和美国而言,一切挑战都只是阻挡其全球目标的障碍,只需加以清除(解决)即可。资本主义的采纳将其社会团结起来,激励人们努力发展国家,进而实现其全球雄心。

In a similar manner Britain and the America on the eve of their development had small populations and lacked the technology to compete with their competitors. Britain's global ambitions of colonising the world, to benefit from their mineral resources, drove them to develop a state of the art navy and turned them into the world's superpower by the turn of the 18th century. American development began through the American Revolution where Britain was expelled as the American people wanted to embrace the unalienable rights of freedom. The belief in ‘manifest destiny' this is the divine belief that the original United States was ordained to conquer the North American continent motivated Americans to work for the territorial expansion Westward. In the case of Britain and America all challenges were mere obstacles that stood in the way of global aims and just needed to be removed (solved). The adoption of Capitalism unified their societies and motivated them to work towards developing the nation and in turn fulfilling their global ambitions.

如今，德国和日本拥有强大的经济，但缺乏改变全球权力平衡的政治意愿。英国拥有政治意愿和雄心，但这并未转化为能够支撑这些雄心的工业和经济实力。印度仍需克服其国内挑战，它不太可能拥有全球性的目标。土耳其已将自身的角色限定在国际体系以及美国对世界的布局之内。这样做虽然能使土耳其保持相关性，因为它将维护美国的利益，但这种战略所巩固的是现有世界强权的地位，而非改变它。

Today Germany and Japan have strong economies but the lack the political will to change the global balance of power. Britain has the political will and ambition, but this has not translated into an industry and economy that would aid such ambitions. India is still to overcome its domestic challenges and it’s very unlikely it will ever have global aims. Turkey has reduced its role to within the context of the international system and the designs the US has on the world. Whilst this will keep Turkey relevant as it will protect US interests such a strategy secures the position of the world’s power rather than alter it.

美国可能面临来自中国和俄罗斯两个挑战者的压力，而美国国家情报评估却持续将全球穆斯林乌玛对伊斯兰教的诉求视为一种威胁。若没有国家，乌玛就无法成为领先的国家，也无法挑战美国。布什政府不断强调潜在哈里发国所构成的威胁，这也是伊拉克战争和阿富汗战争的原因之一。英国退役陆军参谋长、英国首相顾问理查德·丹纳特将军在接受英国BBC第四广播电台采访时承认，阿富汗战争的目标在于："存在一种伊斯兰主义议程，如果我们不在阿富汗南部，或阿富汗，或南亚地区反对并对抗它，那么坦率地说，它的影响力就会增长。它很可能会增长，而这一点很重要，我们可能会看到它从南亚蔓延到中东、北非，直至十四、十五世纪伊斯兰哈里发国的鼎盛时期。"31

Whilst the US potentially faces challenges from two challengers, China and Russia, US national intelligence estimates have continued to reiterate the demand for Islam by the Islamic Ummah around the world as a threat. Without a state the Ummah will be unable to become the leading nation and challenge the US. The threat posed by the potential Khilafah was continually reiterated by the Bush administration, it was one of the reasons for both the Iraq and Afghan wars. The retired UK armed forces chief and advisor to the UK Prime Minister, General Richard Dannatt confessed in an interview to the BBC Radio 4 that the objective behind the war in Afghanistan is; "there is an Islamist agenda which if we don't oppose it and face it off in Southern Afghanistan, or Afghanistan, or in South Asia, then frankly that influence will grow. It could well grow, and this is an important point, we could see it moving from South Asia to the Middle East to North Africa, and to the high water mark of the Islamic caliphate in the 14th, 15th century."31

美国的实力已经受到削弱。金融危机表明，全球最大的美国经济建立在一座纸牌屋之上。然而，当今世界上没有任何国家能够揭露这一现实，因此美国的主导地位将会延续。那些可能对美国构成挑战的国家，要么缺乏政治意愿，要么尚未达到能够与美国进行公开、直接竞争的发展水平。因此，尽管美国正在走向衰退，但由于缺乏可信的替代力量，短期内它不太可能失去世界超级大国的地位。

Americas prowess has been undermined, the financial crisis has shown the US economy, the worlds largest is built upon a pack of cards, however there is no nation in the world who currently can expose such a reality and hence US dominance will continue. Those who can pose a challenge to the US either lack the political will or have not reached the level of development where they can sustain open and direct competition with the US. Therefore whilst the US maybe faltering, due to the absence of a credible alternative power, it is unlikely to be removed - for the moment as the worlds superpower.