United States Abbreviations

USA is the abbreviation for United States, the 3rd largest country in the world. Officially United States of America, United States is a country located in North America, bordering Canada and Mexico. Washington, D.C. is the capital city of United States. Major cities include New York (population: 8,175,122), Los Angeles (population: 3,971,872), Chicago (population: 2,720,535), Brooklyn (population: 2,300,653), Houston (population: 2,296,213), Queens (population: 2,272,760), Philadelphia (population: 1,567,431), Phoenix (population: 1,563,014), Manhattan (population: 1,487,525), and San Antonio (population: 1,469,834).

Country Profile

• Capital: Washington, D.C.
• Language: English
• Area: 3,796,742 km²
• Population: 327,167,434
• Currency: United States dollar ($) (USD)
• Time zone: UTC−4 to −12
• Calling code: 1
• ISO 2-Letter Abbreviation: US
• UN 3-Letter Abbreviation: USA
• Internet TLD: .us
• State Government Website: USHistory.org

List of United States Acronyms

The most commonly used abbreviations about United States are US which stands for United States and USD which means United States dollar (United States currency). In the following table, you can see all acronyms related to United States, including abbreviations for airport, city, school, port, government, and etc.

Geography

The United States is the world’s fourth largest country in terms of area. The landscape is varied. In the east stretches from the Atlantic Ocean towards wooded hills. The Mississippi Missouri River flows through the country and into the Gulf of Mexico. Large plains with agricultural areas characterize the landscape west towards the Rocky Mountains. The areas west of the mountain range are dominated by desert rock formations such as the Grand Canyon. Denali (formerly called Mount McKinley) at 6194 meters is the country’s highest mountain and is located in Alaska. The majority of the United States has temperate climates, but tropical climates predominate in Hawaii and Florida, and polar climates characterize Alaska.

The use of fertilizers and pesticides contaminates groundwater, and in some places consumption must be regulated. The state of California has been drought since 2011. In addition, the United States is among the countries in the world that emit the most CO2. In November 2019, US President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is an agreement that aims to prevent the temperature of the earth from rising more than two degrees. Opting out of the United States makes it much more difficult to achieve this.

History

When Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, he believed he was in India, and therefore began to call Indigenous people indigenous. The country was colonized by the Europeans in the 16th century. For that reason, the United States has always been, and still is, a very multicultural society made up of people from different parts of the world. In 1776, 13 colonies on the Atlantic coast separated from the United Kingdom, leading to the formation of the United States. In 1861, civil war broke out between the northern and southern states. The southern states surrendered in 1865, which resulted in the abolition of slavery. The Civil War was important for strategy and weapons development, and World War I strengthened the reputation of the United States as a military force. The United States joined the Allies during World War II. After the war, the country became the first permanent member of the UN Security Council.

In the postwar period, the United States became the world’s most powerful nation. The country provided political and financial support to countries that needed to be rebuilt in Western Europe. The goal was to stop the Communist influence of the Soviet Union. Parallel to this, there was also an arms race. This power struggle is called the Cold War. It was expressed in the Korean and Vietnam wars, the Cuba crisis and the nuclear weapons armament.

Society and politics

The United States is a republic of 50 states. The responsibilities of the federal authorities (the president and the government, etc.) include foreign policy, defense, civil rights, customs and postal services, the central bank, and regulation of trade between the states. The state’s responsibility is mainly to pass and enforce the laws. Laws and regulations vary widely between states. The Constitution of 1787 is still in force, but with some additional provisions.

Each of the 50 states also has different judicial systems. The US state apparatus and welfare system is small, which means that services we finance in Norway through the tax system cost money in the US. Examples of this are higher education and hospital visits.

The United States Congress (Parliament) consists of two chambers; Senate and House of Representatives. The president is both the head of government and the military, and can veto bills from Congress. In theory, the United States has a multi-party system, but in practice it is the Democrats and Republicans who dominate. Since the controversial Republican Donald Trump became president in 2017, the political climate has changed. President Trump operates in a different style than previous presidents, and has, among other things, garnered criticism by using Twitter to communicate key political messages, talk condescendingly about women, and harass journalists.

Economics and Commerce

The United States is the world’s leading economic superpower. The free market system has traditionally characterized the country’s economy. It is emphasized that the authorities should facilitate a well-functioning business sector without even interfering too much. Due to variations in location, natural resources, climate, transportation and communication, the United States has a varied business structure with large regional differences. Service-providing industries account for the bulk of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), followed by industry, mining, and construction.

The country is well advanced in research and development. Foreign trade is very important, and in recent years the main focus of trade has moved from Europe to Asia. The US has been a driving force in the establishment of the WTO free trade organization and free trade agreements such as NAFTA.

The financial crisis in 2008 led to an economic downturn. GDP fell, unemployment increased, and the state went into a huge deficit. In the years that followed, economic growth slowed, and not until 2014 did unemployment decline, and consumption increased so that the economy improved noticeably. Nevertheless, the country has a large government debt and a huge budget deficit that affects both the economy and politics.

UN RPGs

The UN Association offers a role-playing game for the 2019-20 school year in which students will try to resolve a conflict within the UN Security Council. The United States is a permanent member of the Security Council, and the sections that follow are information related to this game.

Foreign policy and relations with other countries in the Security Council

The United States is the world’s leading superpower, and is actively working for the country to remain so. The United States has military forces deployed in most parts of the world, trading goods and military equipment with many other countries. No other state has equal military power, much thanks to America’s superior technology and large defense budget. The United States alone spends more money on its military system than the next seven countries in the world combined.

The United States has a leadership role in the West, and in the UN usually cooperates closely with the two European veto powers in the Security Council – the United Kingdom and France. The United Kingdom in particular is a frequent supporter of the United States in various UN security issues.

The relationship between the United States and Russia deteriorated in the years after 2012. as a result of developments in Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula, and of the American shopper Edward Snowden being granted temporary asylum in Russia after leaking military secrets to the media.

In the Middle East, in recent years, the United States has been particularly critical of Russia’s support for President Assad in the Syrian civil war. The United States has also criticized Russia for supporting Iran in various regional conflicts. In February 2018, Russia was given primary responsibility for blocking a US proposal in the Security Council to condemn Iran for breaking the UN weapons blockade against the Houthi insurgents in Yemen. This Russian veto in the Security Council became one of the reasons why in May 2018 the US withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran.

The relationship between the United States and China has been criticized in recent decades, but also by great trade and mutual economic dependence. However, this relative peace is now threatened by a growing trade war in which the two countries impose new rounds of penalties on different goods. This negative spiral is of great concern to the world community, which fears economic decline and return to a more protectionist world where the strongest right applies.

The United States is a close ally with Israel and supports this country’s view in most matters pertaining to peace and security in the Middle East. However, the relationship is not always as cordial, and the United States, for example, is currently critical of Israel’s increased commitment to trade with China. This trade includes both the purchase of Chinese high technology and the establishment of agreements that will open the way for the Chinese to operate Israel’s three largest civilian ports (Haifa, Eilat and Ashod). As all these ports are located near important military facilities, the Americans fear that a Chinese presence will pose a future threat of espionage against both Israel and the United States.

Tips

The Obama administration negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. When the United States withdrew from the agreement in May 2018, the Trump administration’s arguments were related both to the content of the agreement and to Iran’s foreign policy in general.

Compared to the nuclear deal itself, the US government now believes that the deal is taking too lightly on the need for even more thorough inspections of Iran’s nuclear program. The nuclear documents seized by Israel in Tehran (the Amad archive) reportedly show that Iran has secret military facilities working to develop nuclear warhead technology, and so far unknown to either the world community or the Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). One of these secret facilities – Shahid Boroujerdi -, has never been inspected by the IAEA or other control bodies.

If this facility really exists, as described and documented in the Amad archive, it is, in the United States’ opinion, very poorly consistent with Iran’s assurances to the IAEA that the country currently has only a civilian nuclear program.

The nuclear deal also allows Iran to resume illegal activities at short notice after the various activity restrictions in the agreement expire. For example, the agreement limits Iran’s legal supply of enriched uranium in such a way that it will only take a year to produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb if Iran withdraws from the agreement. When the restrictions on the possibility of enriching uranium in the deal are removed after 10 years (in 2025), Iran will in theory be able to make enough weapons uranium for a nuclear bomb in a couple of months. This, in Trump’s opinion, is too risky if the goal is really to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons in the long run.

The United States also believes that the nuclear deal to date does not give Iran sufficient incentive to open absolutely all its nuclear facilities for inspections. The atomic agreement sets dates for when former UN sanctions against the country in the military field should cease (sale of conventional weapons, rockets and rocket technology). However, the agreement does not specify that the IAEA must have found absolutely certain evidence that Iran’s nuclear program is civil only, before these sanctions are lifted.

The United States, together with Israel, is also questioning why Iran’s nuclear facilities are so heavily obsessed with military defense facilities, if the facilities are only intended to serve civilian purposes.

In its reason for withdrawing from the nuclear deal, Americans are also critical of Iran’s role in the Middle East in general. They believe Iran is a robbery regime that destabilizes the region by supporting militias such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the Yemenis in Yemen. Iran also provides support to various terrorist groups and uses its missile program to spread uncertainty and threats to international shipping in the region. Iran is doing all this by using oil money, which the country has gained more from after the nuclear deal was signed and previous economic sanctions were lifted. The United States believes that the border is now reached, and that it is therefore time to confront Iran in the hard way for the country to change its policy.

The economic sanctions against Iran that the United States has reintroduced and strengthened bring the United States on collision course with the other countries that were involved in the signing of the nuclear agreement in 2015. Particularly tense is the relationship with the European great powers that participated in the agreement – Germany, the United Kingdom and France – all of which have defended the agreement, and also taken the initiative to create the alternative trade mechanism INSTEX, which will help Iran avoid the worst effects of the US sanctions.

The most important point of INSTEX may be the issue of oil trade, which the United States believes must be included in the sanctions to maintain continued high pressure on the Iranian regime. If Iranian oil trade is allowed under INSTEX, US relations with the EU and Europe will deteriorate sharply. Will the US take a chance on this, or will the country be able to get the European countries to their side in the matter? The issue of selling Iranian oil via INSTEX can create increased tension even in relation to Russia and China if these two countries choose to join the scheme.

The United States leads the Joint Naval Force Combined Maritime Forces in the Persian Gulf, which is mandated to prevent crime in this ocean area (such as piracy, drug trafficking and terrorism). The United States has proposed that this force also be mandated to escort civil merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz, and has invited other countries to join. It is currently uncertain which countries are joining, as the US has marketed the proposal as part of its fierce line of confrontation with Iran. Countries that want negotiations and dialogue with Iran fear that by participating, they may be drawn into a possible military confrontation with Iran against their will.

Should the naval force follow merchant ships through Hormuz, it will enter Iranian territorial waters where the strait is narrowest.

When it comes to the issue of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, the United States believes that Iran’s nuclear program is currently a far more important issue to deal with than Israel’s possible disarmament. The United States agrees with Israel that a number of regional conflicts must be resolved before the zone can become a reality, and will therefore not press for a separate UN meeting to be created to form the zone as part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in spring 2020.

At the global level, the United States, together with Russia, is the world’s leading nuclear weapons state, and it is believed that the country currently has approx. 6550 nuclear warheads in their arsenal. This is approx. 82 percent fewer nuclear weapons than the United States had when the Cold War was at its worst. The decline in the number of weapons is due to both bilateral agreements concluded with the Soviet Union and later Russia, and a generally better disarmament climate between the two major powers in the years after 1990.

However, it now seems that the United States also believes it is necessary to terminate disarmament agreements and develop new nuclear weapons to meet the threats of the future. This means, among other things, for the United States to develop a new and better missile defense to withstand Russian and Chinese nuclear threats, as well as the development of new medium-range missiles. When the US withdrew from the so-called INF agreement in August 2019, it was partly because they believed that Russia had already broken the agreement and because China with its existing medium-range missiles was not covered by it. In its future weapons programs, the United States also wants to build nuclear weapons with lower explosive power, which could make the weapons relevant to military targets. In many ways, this will lower the threshold for weapons to be actually used in war.

The United States is strongly critical of the Nuclear Prohibition Treaty and believes it stigmatizes countries that still consider the world so unsafe that nuclear deterrence is necessary. The agreement does not contribute to dialogue, and the United States believes that nuclear disarmament can only be achieved if the widest possible agreement on the way forward is sought. The United States hopes that the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in the spring of 2020 puts aside the controversial proposal for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, and furthermore that the conference does not focus on the divisive 2017 Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons.

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