Time to Play the Catch-up Game

While trying to improve nations abroad, the United States has lost its sense of self and we no longer excel in the world of technological advancements. We have fallen behind in the world, and part of it comes from, as Thomas Friedman would say, our flattening of the world, which in turn comes from outsourcing jobs and other things of the sort. Another part of it comes as a result of our focus on improving countries in the world by developing them in our own image. Since the U.S. has been ahead of all other countries for so long, we have developed an arrogance and we felt as if the position atop of the world would remain ours forever, yet, countries on the rise, like China and India are quite obviously proving us wrong. People are just now beginning to realize that we have fallen behind and we must instill some of the technological improvements that we are missing but that other world superpowers already have. Kate Galbrath, a writer for the New York Times, also suggests that although we have fallen behind a bit technologically, we are on a path to catching up to other countries in her article, "U.S. Plays Catch-Up on High-Speed Rail"

high-speed rail routes, including the recently opened line between Guangzhou and Wuhan, which covers 1,070 kilometers at the world’s fastest average speed.
Soon, perhaps, the United States, with the world’s largest economy will also clamber on board. So far, the United States — in spite of or perhaps because of its vast size — has virtually no fast trains capable of moving swiftly enough over a long distance to compete with airplanes...President Barack Obama has declared high-speed rail to be a priority. He is interested, he has said, in “innovations that change the way we travel in America” through the creation of cleaner, energy-saving options.

It is reassuring to know that our President is aware that our country has fallen behind in many aspects, and is vigorously pursuing options, such as high-speed rail, to bring us back to a point of stability and dominance. President Obama and Friedman both share the knowledge that if we are to clamber back to the point of economic stability and dominance our country was once at, we must first level ourselves technologically with the rest of the world, and we must focus on domestic affairs, rather than work to develop countries in our image, then get frustrated that they are "beating us." We must take the matter of our country's welfare into our own hands, instead of letting other countries control us (CHINA) because we are exceedingly indebted to them.