New Perspectives on American Grand Strategy: A Review Essay

Abstract

Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) Shortly after the end of the Cold War, a number of leading structural realists such as Kenneth Waltz, John Mearsheimer, and Christopher Layne predicted that America’s “unipolar moment” was likely to be short lived.1 Drawing on traditional balance of power theory, they suggested that America’s unparalleled status as the world’s only superpower would soon trigger widespread counterbalancing on the part of other major states. The policy implication was that Americans ought to play down their hegemonic pretensions and accommodate the inevitable transition toward a multipolar world order. Not only was a certain degree of strategic disengagement a policy prescription: It was the structural realist prediction for American grand strategy in the post–Cold War era. One decade later, a multipolar world order has yet to appear. Granted, American foreign policy is widely resented abroad, and other countries are deNew Perspectives on American Grand Strategy