Introduction

The catalyst for this book was an article in Foreign Policy by Niall Ferguson1

which leads the reader through history to paint a grim scenario if the international system were to look for alternatives to a sole superpower:

Critics of U.S. global dominance should pause and consider the alternative. If the United States retreats from its hegemonic role, who would supplant it? Not Europe, not China, not the Muslim world and certainly not the United Nations. Unfortunately, the alternative to a single superpower is not a multilateral utopia but the anarchic nightmare of a new Dark Age.