A view from Europe: the US role in the next decade

Abstract

The new administration of President Bush will carry American foreign policy into the century's last decade amidst a climate of internal debate about America's world role and in an international environment characterized by profound change. The continuing debate about America's so-called decline as a world power, on the model of earlier historical hegemonic powers, is a symptom of this state of affairs. But America's decline, if it is really taking place, is only one of many relevant changes in the contemporary world, possibly not even the most important as we assess the American role in the concluding years of the twentieth century. Although America's relative weight is decreasing as a new multipolar structure of world politics emerges, its power and impact will remain formidable and decisive in practically every area of world politics. But the challenges to the US role and the nature of its involvement will be very different in the major subject areas of the future: the maintenance of the global economic system, the management of East-West relations, the development of the NATO alliance, and global tasks of world order.