ABSTRACT
The end of the Cold War put America in the curiously unenviable position of having no major geopolitical rival. Triumphalism and growing economic hubris trumped geo-realist common sense about the dangers lurking behind US “unipolarity.” Now, instead of having one preeminent enemy, America finds itself at odds with much of the entire world. It is telling that Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates-who for years served in the CIA tête-à-tête a KGB agent named Vladimir V. Putin-expresses nostalgia toward the “less complex” days of the Cold War.1
