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A Changing World Order? | Brookings Institution

By most measures, reports of America’s declining power, relative to the rest of the world, have again proved premature. The U.S. economy increasingly seems to be on an upswing. The United States remains among the world’s safest and most attractive investments. The shale gas revolution is transforming America into an energy giant of the future. The dollar, once slated for oblivion, seems destined to remain the world’s reserve currency for some time to come. American military power, even amid current budget cuts, remains unmatched in quantity and quality. Meanwhile, the “rise of the rest,” which Fareed Zakaria and other declinists touted a few years ago, has failed to materialize as expected. For all of America’s problems at home — the fiscal crisis, political gridlock, intense partisanship and weak presidential leadership — other great powers, from China to India to Russia to the European Union, have debilitating problems of their own that, in some cases, promise to grow more severe. Overall, the much-heralded return of a multipolar world of roughly equal great powers, akin to that which existed before World War II, has been delayed for at least a few more decades. Absent some unexpected dramatic change, the international system will continue to be that of one superpower and several great powers, or as the late Samuel P. Huntington called it, “uni-multipolarity.”

The U.S. can’t afford to end its global leadership role | Brookings Institution

The economic, political and security strategy that the United States has pursued for more than seven decades, under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, is today widely questioned by large segments of the American public and is under attack by leading political candidates in both parties. Many Americans no longer seem to value the liberal international order that the United States created after World War II and sustained throughout the Cold War and beyond. Or perhaps they take it for granted and have lost sight of the essential role the United States plays in supporting the international environment from which they benefit greatly. The unprecedented prosperity made possible by free and open markets and thriving international trade; the spread of democracy; and the avoidance of major conflict among great powers: All these remarkable accomplishments have depended on sustained U.S. engagement around the world. Yet politicians in both parties dangle before the public the vision of an America freed from the burdens of leadership.

Robert Kagan: America's Dangerous Aversion to Conflict - WSJ

For a quarter-century, Americans have been told that at the end of history lies boredom rather than great conflict, that nations with McDonald's never fight one another, that economic interdependence and nuclear weapons make war among great powers unlikely if not impossible. Recently added to these nostrums has been the mantra of futility. "There is no military solution" is the constant refrain of Western statesmen regarding conflicts from Syria to Ukraine; indeed, military action only makes problems worse. Power itself isn't even what it used to be, argued the columnist Moisés Naím in a widely praised recent book.