How Can We Preserve the Pax Americana?
If the United States wishes to preserve its preeminence on the international stage, it must learn the logic of global power in the twenty-first century. The United States needs to maintain both its leadership within the international state structure, as well as the legitimacy–moral and practical–of the structure itself. In short, there is a “systemic” or “institutional” dimension to the job of being the sole superpower. Preserving U.S. leadership among states is the timeless task of traditional geopolitics. Statesmen have long grasped that the developed states of Europe and East Asia are the key to great-power politics and that the energy resources of the Middle East are crucial to industrial economies. Maintaining a favorable disposition of power in these three regions is essential to preserving the global security order. Yet today the state system of international politics is under increasing pressure. This is most apparent and most immediately threatening in the greater Middle Eas
