Haass admits that the squandering of wealth and manpower that resulted in the relative decline was foolish. But he then prescribes a continuation of the same grand strategy, displaying a lack of understanding of where the world is heading and how the next order is going to be. If someone’s baseline for analysis is faulty, the resultant policy is bound to be flawed. Policy comes after one can predict the coming order correctly. Relative decline lets a great power cut losses and retrench and recuperate, while having others share the burden and bleed. Absolute decline either results in collapse, or results in fear and war and overstretch, which then results in implosion and collapse. There is no euphemistic way of stating the obvious. The American hegemony is gone. That is not unsurprising, as hegemony is inherently unsustainable and draining to resources. But if America needs to maintain its preponderant position in the globe, it needs other powers and allies to share the burden, while rivals bleed. That requires retrenchment from regions that are corrosive, and conceding security of some regions to rival powers. Some of those decisions will be unilateral and will be sold to the American public often by overtly nationalistic rhetoric.

Sumantra Maitra is a National Security Fellow at the Center for the National Interest. He is also a non-resident fellow at the James G Martin Center and an elected Early Career historian member at the Royal Historical Society, UK.

Image: Reuters.