By now it is apparent that a significant change has occurred in the
view taken of American power. Whereas before September 11, 2001,
there was an abundance of articles and books on the brief life of
American hegemony, in the aftermath of that event they have radically
declined in number. What the Gulf War failed to do, the war in
Afghanistan succeeded in doing. It has made converts (however
reluctant) of most of those who before were skeptics, not so much of
the fact of American hegemony today but of its durability. The
"unipolar moment", to use Charles Krauthammer's terminology, has
become the "unipolar era." Years have been replaced by decades.

Not all who once doubted have been so persuaded, however. Charles A.
Kupchan is one of a diminishing band. The End of the American Era
presents his case for believing that the days of American dominance
are limited.

Kupchan does not question that the fundamental geopolitical fact
today is American preponderance. That we live in a unipolar world is
indeed his starting point. "The fundamental, inescapable geopolitical
feature of the moment", he writes, "is American predominance." The
stability of today's global landscape, the absence of any major
geopolitical faultlines, follows directly from its unipolar
structure. Terrorism will remain a threat, but the far more dangerous
threat of great power competition is for now in abeyance. This is the
good news. But the bad news is that U.S. unipolarity will be brief:

Two unstoppable trends mean that America's unipolar moment is
unlikely to last the decade. The first is the diffusion of power. No
dominant country has ever been able to sustain power indefinitely.
Over time, other states catch up. The diffusion of economic strength
will today occur more quickly than in most periods. The near term
challenger to America is not a single country trying to play
catch-up--which takes time--but a European Union that is in the
process of aggregating the impressive resources that its member
nations already possess.

Although not a federal state today--perhaps ever--Europe nevertheless
has a collective weight that rivals the United States in trade and
finance. In defense, Europe is forging a common policy and acquiring
the means to act on its own. A new center of global power is thus in
the making and, Kupchan asserts, "America's power will shrink
accordingly." In a couple of decades, Kupchan believes that Europe
will be followed by East Asia. "By 2025, America and Europe may both
be spending much more time worrying about the rise of Asia than about
each other."

The changing character of American internationalism is the second
trend that will soon bring the unipolar moment to an end. Kupchan
writes:

Unipolarity rests on the existence of a polity that not only enjoys
preponderance, but also is prepared to expend its dominant resources
to keep everyone in line and to underwrite international order. If
the United States were to tire of being the global protector of last
resort, unipolarity would still come undone even if American
resources were to remain supreme.

Kupchan finds signs that with the end of the Cold War, America no
longer feels compelled--particularly given its favorable geographic
location--to play the role of global guardian. And while he sees the
attacks of September 11 as putting a temporary hold on America's
retreat from global hegemony, he believes that "the political center
of gravity has been quietly but steadily moving toward a more limited
internationalism."

How far may this waning internationalism be expected to go? For a
world still so dependent for its stability on American power and
purpose, it is a vital question. Kupchan does not attempt to answer
it. Instead, he merely notes the huge difference between reining in
our commitments, which he thinks is in any event inevitable and can
be done with minimal risk, and a withdrawal from global affairs
altogether, which would have dire consequences given the fact that
global stability remains so dependent on American power.

Finally, there is the problem of America's unilateralism, which
Kupchan finds likely to increasingly define the nation's modus
operandi, whatever the level of engagement it has in managing
international order in the years ahead. "As in the past, America's
unilateralist bent stems from fear that international institutions
will encroach on the nation's sovereignty and room for maneuver."
Unilateralism was once inseparable from isolationism, but today it is
the corollary of a policy intent on shaping an international order
responsive to American hegemony. The re-emergence of unilateralism,
Kupchan argues, may be traced to the absence of Cold War restraints,
electoral politics (the appeal of unilateralism to conservative
Republicans), and American frustration with its inability to get its
way with putative allies and others as often as in the past. The
conjoined war on terrorism and rogue states only promises to magnify
the impulse to a greater unilateralism. To all the issues that
divided the United States from allies and former adversaries prior to
September 11, issues only momentarily masked over in the immediate
response to that attack, must now be added the problems arising from
the conduct of this war.

Kupchan thinks the best we may hope for is that Washington will begin
to lay the groundwork for a new and more discriminating brand of
American internationalism that will enjoy the public's support. For
the unipolar moment is passing.

Combine the rise in Europe and Asia with a declining and prickly
internationalism in the United States and it becomes clear that
America's unipolar moment is not long for this world. America's
dominance and its political appetite for projecting its power
globally have peaked, and both will be dissipating over the course of
the coming decade.

A return to a more familiar world is in the making, and the central
challenge for American strategy will be coping with the dangers
arising from the new geographical faultlines which, in the final
analysis, look a lot like the old geographical faultlines we have
long read about in history books.

Kupchan supports his themes by relying on history as well as the
logic of contemporary affairs. In a series of essays, Kupchan
examines those historical periods that in his judgment best
illuminate the dilemmas of present policy. The method of historical
analogy is deemed unavoidable. "Unless anchored in the past", he
explains in his preface, "analysis of the present is likely to be of
only fleeting relevance and risks overlooking the potent sources of
change that run beneath the surface and become apparent only in
historical relief." But even if skillfully carried out, the question
persists--particularly in the study of American history--of the
degree to which the past continues to rule over the present.

Kupchan has much to say in criticizing American foreign policy that
is on point. But his principal message concerns the passing of the
American era, and it is on this ground that the work must be largely
judged. In doing so, I use the same realistic yardstick that Kupchan
uses. "According to the book's map of the world", he writes, "the
defining element of the global system is the distribution of power,
not democracy, culture, globalization, or anything else." Power, not
potential but actual power, is the key.

To the extent that the foreseen American decline is attributed to
external causes, there is not much to say that has not already been
said--both in general and in some earlier reviews of The End of the
American Era. It may well be true, as Kupchan tells us, that the
integration of Europe is "one of the most significant geopolitical
events of the twentieth century", and that it represents "a turning
point every bit as momentous as the founding of the United States,
perhaps more so." Even so, there is the matter of time. Kupchan
assumes that the European Union's geopolitical significance will be
substantially realized in the course of the current decade. Yet
nowhere does he give persuasive reasons in support of this contention.

At present, the states that make up the EU possess resources
sufficient to rival the United States. In what period of time they might succeed
in converting that potential power into usable power is anyone's
guess. One need not be a Euroskeptic to see the process taking at
least several decades. If demographic trends unfold as they are now
projected, that day may never come. In any event, the EU's challenge
is above all dependent upon forging a centralized decision-making
body having the authority to act on behalf of Europe in matters of
foreign policy, and this would, of course, mean the surrender by the
separate states of control over foreign policy. The European response
to Iraq has shown that the EU is still a long way from achieving so
revolutionary a change, and, with its expansion to include ten new
member states, that day is even more distant. In its absence,
American domination of the continent may be expected to continue into
an indefinite future, particularly if the Bush Administration's
National Security Strategy prevails. The NSS is designed to widen
still further the immense gap in military spending and capability
that exists today between the United States and any other nation or
feasible combination of nations.

If the end of the American era is to come in the foreseeable future,
it will therefore have to result largely from internal causes.
Kupchan makes the point repeatedly that our global role has depended
upon having a major adversary, and that in the absence of one the
United States will no longer feel compelled to play the role of
global guardian. Nor does he think that terrorism can serve as the
functional equivalent of a great power foe. At best, Kupchan argues,
terrorism introduces an unpredictable element into policy, "at times
provoking America to lash out, at other times inducing it to retreat
behind protective barriers." "[I]n the long run terrorism . . .
promises to reinforce the unilateral and isolationist trends that
were already picking up steam before September 11." It is from the
study of American history that Kupchan sees the need of a major
adversary to sustain our global role. Since the end of the Cold War,
he writes, America's past has been catching up with its present.
There is something to be said for this view.

We did need a major adversary to draw us into the role we now play,
and prior to September 11, 2001 a growing aversion to bearing the
costs of hegemony in the absence of a major adversary was indeed
apparent. Still, that aversion did not lead the nation to abandon its
pretensions to an order-giving role. Having once gained the
commanding position we came to occupy, we were reluctant to give it
up. Kupchan himself calls attention to the new commitments taken on
by the United States during the 1990s, though he thinks this was an
aberration rather than a reliable indication of the future. He
attributes U.S. action to a hangover from the Cold War, an
unprecedented economic boom and the "illusion" that war can be waged
primarily from the air with minimum loss of American lives. These
considerations surely contributed to the persistence of American
hegemony in the 1990s. In the end, however, they must be seen as
subordinate to the simple rule that global powers do not relinquish
their position voluntarily. The United States is proving to be no
exception to this rule.

Although the long-term effects terrorism will have on American policy
necessarily remain speculative, it seems odd to insist that they must
reinforce both unilateralism and isolationism. The case for believing
that they must reinforce unilateralism is reasonably clear and
follows from the administration's conception of the threat and
particularly the strategy for combating it. As spelled out in the
administration's National Security Strategy, the threat terrorists
and rogue states pose arises from the marriage of radicalism and
technology. The result is a security environment more complex and
dangerous than that of an earlier era. In the Cold War, the United
States faced a risk-averse adversary; traditional concepts of
deterrence worked. Against terrorists and rogue states, however, the
former constraints are no longer effective. For them, weapons of mass
destruction have been transformed from weapons of last resort to
weapons of choice. It is in these changed circumstances that a
strategy of pre-emption is both necessary and justified. The concept
of imminent threat, says the administration, must be adapted to the
capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries.

A strategy that encompasses the notion of pre-emptive war is almost
bound to be unilateral. At the same time, it may be anything but
isolationist. That Kupchan does not give this prospect its due is the
result of his reading of the American position today. He has
constructed his case around the proposition of an American power that
is in decline. If it were indeed true that a multipolar world is
already on the cusp, the prospects he holds out--whether of an
increasing isolationism or of a more discriminating brand of
internationalism--might follow. But if instead American hegemony
continues to reign without serious challenge, a third prospect must
be given serious consideration: that of empire in everything but name.

Although nothing lasts forever, the only safe bet is that the
international system will remain unipolar for a long time. It may
well be that American power will go without serious challenge until
the middle of this century. In these circumstances, what constraints
should the holders of such power observe? The answer given by the
Bush Administration seems simple enough. This government alone, it
declares, will determine when and for what purposes force should be
employed, and it will do so according to its own distinctive
standards of judgment. That the decision is unilateral does not
necessarily mean that action will also be unilateral. Other states
may join in, whatever their reasons for becoming part of the
"coalitions of the willing." It may be that a given action will bear
the imprimatur of the UN Security Council, or not. Should it do so,
the American government would be particularly gratified.
Nevertheless, the source and legitimacy of the action will remain
independent of the United Nations.

This has been the position of the Bush Administration in the case of
Iraq. Should it become the position of future administrations as
well, the United States will set itself against world opinion and its
own best traditions. What the world apparently fears most is neither
terrorists nor tyrants but the untrammeled power of the United
States. If this nation is to lead, it will first have to reassure the
world about the uses and purposes of its power. How this can be done
is the great question, and here, one can do no better than to follow
Kupchan. Wrong though he is in his estimate of the end of
unipolarity, he is right in his prescription of the ideas that should
inform American foreign policy today--the exercise of strategic
restraint and the reaching of decisions through a consensus of the
great powers. Reassurance would come through the observance of
processes that depend upon some measure of compromise and consent
rather than simply the fiat of the world's greatest power.

On the other hand, the failure to provide reassurance might lead to
an outcome not too different from Kupchan's isolationism. What gives
the prospect of isolationism some plausibility is the possibility of
a pendulum effect should the Bush Administration overreach in the
Middle East. Too great a swing in terms of an over-commitment that
goes badly could prompt an exaggerated swing in the opposite
direction.

Then, too, isolationism could be the result of an America that is
increasingly disliked by the world, with all that this implies in
terms of political opposition, criticism, obstructionism and general
disaffection. For a nation as desirous as ever to be liked, how long
would the United States be willing to go on playing an unpopular
role, one that would perhaps have to depend more and more on naked
power? Prospects not to be dismissed, they should give pause to an
administration hell-bent on having its way.