United States

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This article is about the United States of America. For other uses of terms redirecting here, see US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation).

United States of America
Flag Great Seal
Motto: In God We Trust  (official) E Pluribus Unum   (traditional) (Latin: Out of Many, One)
Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner"
Capital		Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°01′W
Largest city		New York City
Official language(s)		None at federal level[a]
National language		English (de facto)[b]
Demonym		American
Government		Federal presidential constitutional republic, Two-party system
-	President	Barack Obama (D)
-	Vice President	Joe Biden (D)
-	Speaker of the House	John Boehner (R)
-	Chief Justice	John Roberts
Legislature		Congress
-	Upper house	Senate
-	Lower house	House of Representatives
Independence		from the Kingdom of Great Britain
-	Declared	July 4, 1776
-	Recognized	September 3, 1783
-	Current constitution	June 21, 1788
Area
-	Total	9,826,675 km2 [1][c](3rd/4th) 3,794,101 sq mi
-	Water (%)	6.76
Population
-	2012 estimate	314,310,000[2] (3rd)
-	Density	33.7/km2 87.4/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$15.094 trillion[3] (1st)
-	Per capita	$48,386[3] (6th)
GDP (nominal)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$15.094 trillion[3] (1st)
-	Per capita	$48,386[3] (15th)
Gini (2007)		45.0[1] (39th)
HDI (2011)		0.910[4] (very high) (4th)
Currency		United States dollar ($) (USD)
Time zone		(UTC−5 to −10)
-	Summer (DST)	(UTC−4 to −10[e])
Date formats		m/d/yy (AD)
Drives on the		right
ISO 3166 code		US
Internet TLD		.us .gov .mil .edu
Calling code		+1
^ a. English is the official language of at least 28 states—some sources give higher figures, based on differing definitions of "official".[5] English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the state of Hawaii. ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80 percent of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language. ^ c. Whether the United States or China is larger is disputed. The figure given is from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's The World Factbook. Other sources give smaller figures. All authoritative calculations of the country's size include only the 50 states and the District of Columbia, not the territories. ^ d. The population estimate includes people whose usual residence is in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, including noncitizens. It does not include either those living in the territories, amounting to more than 4 million U.S. citizens (mostly in Puerto Rico), or U.S. citizens living outside the United States. ^ e. See Time in the United States for details about laws governing time zones in the United States. ^ f. Does not include Insular areas and United States Minor Outlying Islands, which have their own ISO 3166 codes.

The United States of America (commonly called the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic consisting of fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean. At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 314 million people, the United States is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area, and the third-largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.^[6]
Paleoindians migrated from Asia to what is now the United States mainland around 15,000 years ago. The Native American population descendent from them was in turn greatly reduced, primarily by disease after European contact and exasperated by European colonization. The United States itself was initially derived from thirteen British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, delegates to the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their right to self-determination and establishment of a sovereign union. The rebellious states defeated the British Empire in the American Revolution, the first successful colonial war of independence.^[7] The current United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a stronger central government. The Bill of Rights, consisting of ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.
Through the 19th century, the United States embarked on a vigorous program of expansion across North America. It displaced native tribes, acquiring the Louisiana territory from France and Florida from Spain. It annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, leading to war in which it conquered half of Mexico. It purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. During the early territorial expansion, significant disputes between the agrarian slave-holding South and free-soil industrial North led to the American Civil War. The North's victory reestablished the Union, and led to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ending legalized slavery in the United States. The Plains Indian Wars relocated remaining tribes onto confined reservations, a Congressional Resolution annexed the Republic of Hawaii, then the treaty ending the Spanish-American War ceded Puerto Rico and Guam. By the end of the nineteenth century, its national economy was the world's largest.^[8]
The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity).^[3][9] Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.^[3] The country accounts for 41% of global military spending,^[10] and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.^[11]

Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 2.1 Native American and European settlement 2.2 Independence and expansion 2.3 Civil War and industrialization 2.4 World War I, Great Depression, and World War II 2.5 Cold War and protest politics 2.6 Contemporary era 3 Government and politics 3.1 Parties and ideology 4 Foreign relations and military 5 Economy 6 Geography and environment 7 Political divisions 7.1 Income and human development 8 Infrastructure 8.1 Science and technology 8.2 Transportation 8.3 Energy 8.4 Education 8.5 Health 9 Crime and law enforcement 10 Demographics 10.1 Language 10.2 Religion 10.3 Family structure 11 Culture 11.1 Popular media 11.2 Literature, philosophy, and the arts 11.3 Food 11.4 Sports 11.5 Measurement systems 12 See also 13 References 14 External links

Etymology

See also: Names for United States citizens

In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere "America" after Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.^[12]
The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymously written essay published in the Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia on April 6, 1776.^[13][14] In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson included the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his “original Rough draught” of the Declaration of Independence.^[15][16] In the final Fourth of July version of the Declaration, the pertinent section of the title was changed to read, "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America".^[17]
On November 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'." The Franco-American treaties of 1778 used "United States of North America", but from July 11, 1778, "United States of America" was used on the country's bills of exchange, and it has been the official name ever since.^[18]
The short form "United States" is also standard. Other common forms include the "U.S.", the "USA", and "America". Colloquial names include the "U.S. of A." and, internationally, the "States". "Columbia", a name popular in poetry and songs of the late 1700s,^[19] derives its origin from Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name "District of Columbia".
The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an "American". Although "United States" is the official appositional term, "American" and "U.S." are more commonly used to refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). "American" is rarely used in English to refer to subjects not connected with the United States.^[20]
The phrase "United States" was originally treated as plural—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to treat it as singular—e.g., "the United States is"—after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States".^[21]

History

Main article: History of the United States

Native American and European settlement

The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, including Alaska Natives, are believed to have migrated from Asia, beginning between 40,000 and 12,000 years ago.^[22] Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. After Europeans began settling the Americas, many millions of indigenous Americans died from epidemics of imported diseases such as smallpox.^[23] The whole of what is today described as the "U.S. mainland" was once the land of the indigenous peoples.

The Mayflower transported Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, as depicted in William Halsall's The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor, 1882.

In 1492 while under contract to Spanish crown, Christopher Columbus discovered several Caribbean islands and made first contact with the indigenous people.^[24] On April 2, 1513, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed on what he called "La Florida" - the first documented European arrival on what would become the U.S. mainland.^[25] Spanish settlements in the region were followed by ones in the present-day southwestern United States. French fur traders established outposts of New France around the Great Lakes; France eventually claimed much of the North American interior, down to the Gulf of Mexico.^[26] The first successful English settlements were the Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620.^[27] The 1628 chartering of the Massachusetts Bay Colony resulted in a wave of migration; by 1634, New England had been settled by some 10,000 Puritans. Between the late 1610s and the American Revolution, about 50,000 convicts were shipped to Britain's American colonies.^[28] Beginning in 1614, the Dutch settled along the lower Hudson River, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.^[29]
In 1674, the Dutch ceded their American territory to England; the province of New Netherland was renamed New York.^[30] Many new immigrants, especially to the South, were indentured servants—some two-thirds of all Virginia immigrants between 1630 and 1680.^[31] By the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor in many regions.^[32] With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the United States of America were established.^[33] All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism. All legalized the African slave trade.^[34] With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady immigration, the colonial population grew rapidly. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. In the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans, who were being displaced, those thirteen colonies had a population of 2.6 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain; nearly one in five Americans were black slaves.^[35] Though subject to British taxation, the American colonials had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.

Independence and expansion

Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull, 1817–18

Tensions between American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 to 1781.^[36] On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington.^[37] Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights", the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. That date is now celebrated annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak confederal government that operated until 1789.^[38]
After the British defeat by American forces assisted by the French and Spanish, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States and the states' sovereignty over American territory west to the Mississippi River.^[39] Those wishing to establish a strong federal government with powers of taxation organized a constitutional convention in 1787.^[40] The United States Constitution was ratified in 1788, and the new republic's first Senate, House of Representatives, and president—George Washington—took office in 1789.^[41] The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.^[41]
Attitudes toward slavery were shifting; a clause in the Constitution protected the Atlantic slave trade only until 1808.^[42] The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution".^[43] The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, made evangelicalism a force behind various social reform movements, including abolitionism.^[44]

Territorial acquisitions by date

Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of Indian Wars.^[45] The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size.^[46] The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism.^[47] A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819.^[48] The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that stripped the native peoples of their land. The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, amid a period when the concept of Manifest Destiny was becoming popular.^[49] The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest.^[50] The U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War resulted in the 1848 cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest.^[51] The California Gold Rush of 1848–49 further spurred western migration.^[52] New railways made relocation easier for settlers and increased conflicts with Native Americans.^[53] Over a half-century, up to 40 million American bison, or buffalo, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the railways' spread.^[54] The loss of the buffalo, a primary resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures.^[54]

Civil War and industrialization

Battle of Gettysburg, lithograph by Currier & Ives, ca. 1863

Tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments about the relationship between the state and federal governments, as well as violent conflicts over the spread of slavery into new states.^[55] Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in 1860.^[56] Before he took office, seven slave states declared their secession—which the federal government maintained was illegal—and formed the Confederate States of America.^[57] With the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the Civil War began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy.^[57] Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declared slaves in the Confederacy to be free. Following the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution ensured freedom for the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves,^[58] made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power.^[59] The war remains the deadliest conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers.^[60]

Immigrants at Ellis Island, New York Harbor, 1902

After the war, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves.^[61] The resolution of the disputed 1876 presidential election by the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws soon disenfranchised many African Americans.^[61] In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe hastened the country's industrialization. The wave of immigration, lasting until 1929, provided labor and transformed American culture.^[62] National infrastructure development spurred economic growth. The 1867 Alaska Purchase from Russia completed the country's mainland expansion. The Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 was the last major armed conflict of the Indian Wars. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by American residents; the United States annexed the archipelago in 1898. Victory in the Spanish–American War the same year demonstrated that the United States was a world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.^[63] The Philippines gained independence a half-century later; Puerto Rico and Guam remain U.S. territories.

World War I, Great Depression, and World War II

An abandoned farm in South Dakota during the Dust Bowl, 1936

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral. Most Americans sympathized with the British and French, although many opposed intervention.^[64] In 1917, the United States joined the Allies, and the American Expeditionary Forces helped to turn the tide against the Central Powers. After the war, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. The country pursued a policy of unilateralism, verging on isolationism.^[65] In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a range of policies increasing government intervention in the economy, including the establishment of the Social Security system.^[66] The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.

Soldiers of the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division landing in Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944

The United States, effectively neutral during World War II's early stages after Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers as well as the internment of Japanese Americans by the thousands.^[67] Participation in the war spurred capital investment and industrial capacity. Among the major combatants, the United States was the only nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer because of the war.^[68] Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. As victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.^[69] The United States, having developed the first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, ending the war.^[70]

Cold War and protest politics

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech, 1963

The United States and the Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during the Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact, respectively. While they engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided direct military conflict. The U.S. often opposed Third World left-wing movements that it viewed as Soviet-sponsored. American troops fought Communist Chinese and North Korean forces in the Korean War of 1950–53. The House Un-American Activities Committee pursued a series of investigations into suspected leftist subversion, while Senator Joseph McCarthy became the figurehead of anticommunist sentiment.
The 1961 Soviet launch of the first manned spaceflight prompted President John F. Kennedy's call for the United States to be first to land "a man on the moon", achieved in 1969. Kennedy also faced a tense nuclear showdown with Soviet forces in Cuba. Meanwhile, the United States experienced sustained economic expansion. A growing civil rights movement, symbolized and led by African Americans such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., used nonviolence to confront segregation and discrimination. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson.^[71][72] He also signed into law the Medicare and Medicaid programs.^[73] Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, expanded a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. A widespread countercultural movement grew, fueled by opposition to the war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and others led a new wave of feminism that sought political, social, and economic equality for women.
As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, to avoid being impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power. The Jimmy Carter administration of the late 1970s was marked by stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 heralded a rightward shift in American politics, reflected in major changes in taxation and spending priorities. His second term in office brought both the Iran-Contra scandal and significant diplomatic progress with the Soviet Union. The subsequent Soviet collapse ended the Cold War.

Contemporary era

The World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001

Under President George H. W. Bush, the United States took a lead role in the UN–sanctioned Gulf War. The longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history—from March 1991 to March 2001—encompassed the Bill Clinton administration and the dot-com bubble.^[74] A civil lawsuit and sex scandal led to Clinton's impeachment in 1998, but he remained in office. The 2000 presidential election, one of the closest in American history, was resolved by a U.S. Supreme Court decision—George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, became president.
On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly three thousand people. In response, the Bush administration launched the global War on Terror, invading Afghanistan and removing the Taliban government and al-Qaeda training camps. Taliban insurgents continue to fight a guerrilla war. In 2002, the Bush administration began to press for regime change in Iraq on controversial grounds.^[75] Forces led by the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, ousting Saddam Hussein. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused severe destruction along much of the Gulf Coast, devastating New Orleans. In 2008, amid a global economic recession, the first African American president, Barack Obama, was elected. Major health care and financial system reforms were enacted two years later. In 2011, a raid by Navy SEALs in Pakistan killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The Iraq War officially ended with the pullout of the remaining U.S. troops from the country in December 2011.

Government and politics

The west front of the United States Capitol, which houses the U.S. Congress

Main articles: Federal government of the United States, state governments of the United States, and elections in the United States

The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law".^[76] The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document.^[77] In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels.

The south façade of the White House, home and workplace of the U.S. president

The federal government is composed of three branches:

• Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse,^[78] and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.^[79]
• Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law (subject to Congressional override), and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.^[80]
• Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.

The west front of the United States Supreme Court Building

The House of Representatives has 435 voting members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population every tenth year. As of the 2000 census, seven states have the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, has fifty-three.^[81] The Senate has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned to the states and the District of Columbia.^[82] The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.^[83]
The state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion; Nebraska uniquely has a unicameral legislature.^[84] The governor (chief executive) of each state is directly elected. Some state judges and cabinet officers are appointed by the governors of the respective states, while others are elected by popular vote.
The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus, and Article Three guarantees the right to a jury trial in all criminal cases. Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times;^[85] the first ten amendments, which make up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual rights. All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review and any law ruled in violation of the Constitution is voided. The principle of judicial review, not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was declared by the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison (1803).^[86]

Parties and ideology

Main articles: Politics of the United States and Political ideologies in the United States

Barack Obama taking the presidential oath of office from U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, January 20, 2009

The United States has operated under a two-party system for most of its history.^[87] For elective offices at most levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.^{[citation needed]}
Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered center-right or conservative and the Democratic Party is considered center-left or liberal.^[88] The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, known as "blue states", are relatively liberal. The "red states" of the South and parts of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative.
The winner of the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama, is the 44th U.S. president. The 2010 midterm elections saw the Republican Party take control of the House and make gains in the Senate, where the Democrats retain the majority. In the 112th United States Congress, the Senate consists of 51 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 47 Republicans; the House consists of 242 Republicans and 192 Democrats—one seat is vacant. There are 29 Republican and 20 Democratic state governors, as well as one independent.^[89]
Since the founding of the United States until 2000s, the country had been governed by White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs). However, the situation has changed recently and of the top 17 positions (four national candidates of the two major party in US presidential election 2012, four leaders in 112th United States Congress, and nine Supreme Court Justices) there is only one WASP.^[90][91][92]

Foreign relations and military

Main articles: Foreign relations of the United States, Foreign policy of the United States, and United States Armed Forces

British Foreign Secretary William Hague and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, May 2010

The United States exercises global economic, political, and military influence. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and New York City hosts the United Nations Headquarters. It is a member of the G8,^[93] G20, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Almost all countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and many have consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host American diplomatic missions. However, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States (however the US still supplies Taiwan with military Equipment).
The United States has a "special relationship" with the United Kingdom^[94] and strong ties with Canada,^[95] Australia,^[96] New Zealand,^[97] the Philippines,^[98] Japan,^[99] South Korea,^[100] Israel,^[101] and several European countries like France and Germany. It works closely with fellow NATO members on military and security issues and with its neighbors through the Organization of American States and free trade agreements such as the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2008, the United States spent a net $25.4 billion on official development assistance, the most in the world. As a share of America's large gross national income (GNI), however, the U.S. contribution of 0.18% ranked last among twenty-two donor states. By contrast, private overseas giving by Americans is relatively generous.^[102]

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier

The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The Coast Guard is run by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and the Department of the Navy in time of war. In 2008, the armed forces had 1.4 million personnel on active duty. The Reserves and National Guard brought the total number of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors.^[103]
Military service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System.^[104] American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft, the Navy's eleven active aircraft carriers, and Marine Expeditionary Units at sea with the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The military operates 865 bases and facilities abroad,^[105] and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.^[106] The extent of this global military presence has prompted some scholars to describe the United States as maintaining an "empire of bases".^[107]
Total U.S. military spending in 2010, almost $700 billion, was 43% of global military spending and greater than the next fourteen largest national military expenditures combined. At 4.8% of GDP, the rate was the second-highest among the top fifteen military spenders, after Saudi Arabia.^[108] The proposed base Department of Defense budget for 2012, $553 billion, is a 4.2% increase over 2011; an additional $118 billion is proposed for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.^[109] The last American troops serving in Iraq departed in December 2011;^[110] 4,484 servicemen were killed during the Iraq War.^[111] Approximately 90,000 U.S. troops were serving in Afghanistan as of April 2012;^[112] as of April 4, 1,924 had been killed during the War in Afghanistan.^[113]