ABSTRACT
In the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century, the United States, due to the combined effects of military overreach and economic disaster was categorized by some as being caught in an irreversible spiral of decline. The 11th September 2001 attacks fundamentally changed the American outlook on national and international security. The problems facing America went deeper, though, than Iraq and the 'war on terror'. Terrorism and the American inability to rein in opposition in Iraq and Afghanistan were merely symptoms of the relative ineffectiveness of traditional forms of military power. Meanwhile the defiance of North Korea and Iran was a reminder of the relative impotence of diplomatic and economic sanctions in the modern world and the ability of countries, even small ones, to maintain an independent course even in a globalized world. Given the failures in foreign policy and deadlock at home, the world's leading democracy seemed to be on an unstoppable path of decline.
