The title, please 
Can we have a cite that the US is the sole representative of The West?
Also, reported for forum change.
Was it 1972, when Britain withdrew their military assets in the region due to being poor and humbled?
When its collective ego grew large enough to believe its own fantasies.
In other words, it isn’t. “The West” doesn’t have a representative. It’s not an organization.
The question is very ambiguous. The sole representative of the West with respect to what? Military power? Culture? Language? Diplomacy? The Economy? A special “Representative of the West” position appointed by the UN? Last I checked, Germany was still an industrial powerhouse cranking out cars by the thousands that are sold all over the West, including the US, and France is still speaking French. True, France is speaking French today thanks to the help it has received from the US, but the US didn’t stick around and try to impose English.
This is more IMHO territory, but after WWII, the US was left with its industry in tact. American manufacturing was ideally set up to produce many of the goods needed to rebuild much of Asia and Europe after the war. From that position, the US was able to leverage the cold war conflict with the USSR to pull much of the West into the US political sphere. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has seen a diminished role in world at large and no longer is able to exert the same level of political, military and economic influence over the West.
I’d agree with the suggestion of after World War II.
Why did you open this thread if you already knew “the answer”?
Depends on what you mean by “the west”. If you mean ‘industrialized nations outside Asia, Africa, and the Middle East’ that’s simply a result of being the largest, most powerful country in that category. I suspect the Reagan doctrine (US is defender of democracy around the globe) also played a large part in that.
If you mean North and South America, that happened with the Monroe Doctrine in the late 1820’s. Here’s wikipedia’s cite: Monroe Doctrine - Wikipedia . (Wikipedia may not be authoritative or trustworthy, but even Cecil acknowledges it as “a good starting point”).
after 1972: When exactly?
when Great Britain, poor and humbled, could no longer afford to maintain a full military force in the region. : I’d like to have an in-depth explanation of this. Step by step
Would you like it in 1200 words single spaced and submitted by Friday or something else?
Americans like to call their president Leader of the Free World, which even when I was a kid, I thought was a really pompous thing to say. A lot of this is just something Americans tell themselves to feel better about our crappy mass transit systems.
Would you rather we just called him the man with robotic spy planes roaming the skies ready to cap your ass as soon as you stick your head above ground? Or the guy with his finger on the button that can send your puny and insignificant country back to the stone age?
Pompous? Leader of the free world just seems so much more civil and nicer; less threatening. Who needs mass transportation when you can have mass destruction? It’s much better to be friends and let us lead. 
Sorry, not in depth, but check the wikipedia entry for “East of Suez .” Briefly , after devaluation of the pound in 1968, the British Government decided to withdraw much of its military presence in the Middle East and Asia with effect from 1971.
I apologize for the annoying tone in my post. I merely would like to learn which sources, articles, books etc. I should look for.
Too vague to be a Genral Question. Moved to IMHO.
samclem, moderator
The west of what?
The West of Middle-earth, of course:
But your question comes from a very odd place. You read that article and you seem to take it as generally-accepted fact, while it seems to me like a very slanted piece of pure opinion. Either way, I think the best way to answer your question would be for you to ask the author of that piece.
The article says he is: “William O. Beeman is an anthropologist teaching at Brown University.” When I googled that quoted sentence, the first hit was Mr Beeman’s own webpage at Brown university, and it seems to include his personal phone number. The second hit was his Wikipedia page, which offers more info about him.
He does not seem to be dead, retired, or even difficult-to-find.
Go right to the source and ask the horse.
He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse.
He's always on a steady course.
Talk to Mister Beeman!