ABSTRACT
Since the 1970s the Cold War Geopolitical Order has slowly unravelled. It was the erosion of the American rather than the Soviet position which first attracted attention. Many students of international political economy trace the initial breakdown to the collapse of the post-war international monetary system (Bretton Woods) in 1971-3 and the dramatic increases in world oil prices in the decade of the 1970s. An overwhelming emphasis has been placed on the idea of American economic decline compared to the pre-eminent position of the US during the 1950s and 1960s. This, along with the more recent collapse of the Soviet Union, is seen as having opened up the possibility for a new geopolitical order in which the United States will no longer be the hegemonic power or ‘hegemon’. A corollary of this trend is thought to be the rise of a new hegemon. This makes the question of American decline both more threatening and more urgent. American hegemony will be displaced by a hegemony exercised by another territorial state.
