The Future of American Global Power

Abstract

The 2008 economic crisis spawned a wealth of speculation, academic and otherwise, on the future status of the United States in the international system. After approximately 20 years of America's unprecedented status as the sole dominant global power, the financial crisis, the US' growing debt and deficit, polarization and gridlock within congress, and far-flung military commitments raised significant doubts that the United States would be able and willing to maintain its status. In many ways, these core arguments echoed the debate on American decline roughly 30 years ago. Particularly, they reflected Paul Kennedy's imperial overstretch argument embedded in his historical study of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, published in 1987. Alongside the focus on internal American capacity to maintain its dominant status, many observers prior to the crisis had begun to see what Charles Krauthammer had termed the United States' unipolar moment coming to a close. The international system was in the initial stages of transformation with the rise of new first-tier global competitors in the likes