ABSTRACT
In a remarkable about-face, Paul Kennedy wrote in a 2002 Financial Times article that the United States has maintained its unipolar hegemony, that is, its dominance. In 2003, Kennedy, the American political strategist Joseph Nye, Jr., and the political consultant Richard Perle participated in a symposium called “The Reluctant Empire.” The panel primarily focused on how the United States should secure itself in a post-9/11 world, especially in light of the war in Iraq. After 9/11 ratcheted up the United States’ quasi-imperial commitments abroad, the financial crisis of 2007-8 diminished economic resources at home, and Kennedy reaffirmed his belief in American decline once again. Fareed Zakaria, perhaps the most important “declinist” working today, may be best known for his 2009 book The Post-American World. Essentially, Zakaria argues, as US economic and military power declines relative to others, no other nation is attempting to supplant the United States. The truth is that the rising powers simply care about one another more.
