The Great Transformation and the Failure of Illiberal Hegemony - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 160

If the end of the Cold War was itself a surprise to many observers, so too was what fol-
lowed: the remarkable stability and continuity of cooperation within the American-led or-
der. Few observers expected this outcome either. Rather than continuity and consolidation
of the Western order, the widespread expectation was for its gradual breakdown and move-
ment toward a more competitive multipolar system. 6 One prominent view was that with the
end of the Cold War—and the disappearance of bipolarity and the unifying threat of Soviet
power—the global system would return to its older pattern of multipolar balance of power.
This, of course, was the pattern of international politics that more or less prevailed for cen-
turies—from 1648 to 1945. No single state dominated the system and alliance commitments
were flexible. For traditional realist scholars, the bipolar system was a historical anomaly.
The expectation was that the global system would return to its old pattern rather than per-
sist as an even more anomalous unipolar system. The classic statement of this logic was ar-
ticulated by Kenneth Waltz, namely, that states balance against power and, as a result, the
appearance of a single dominant state, will stimulate the rise of other great powers or coali-
tions of states to balance against the leading state. 7 This was the view of John Mearsheimer,
who predicted in 1992 that “bipolarity will disappear with the passing of the Cold War, and
multipolarity will emerge in the new international order.” 8 Kenneth Waltz also speculated on
the prospects for the reemergence of an array of great powers—Japan, Germany, China, the
European Union, and a revived Russia. 9 Christopher Layne argued that the extreme prepon-
derance of American power would trigger counterbalancing reactions by Asian and European
allies, or at least a loosening of the political and security ties that marked the Cold War era. 10
Anticipations also existed for a return to competitive multipolarity in East Asia. 11
Others also saw the post-Cold War world returning to instability and conflict but argued
that it would revolve around geo-economic competition. America, Europe, and Japan in par-
ticular would emerge as competing economic blocs, each built around a different type of
capitalism and regional order. The new security competition would be over economic gains
and divide capitalist states and fragment the global economic system. Richard Samuels and
Eric Heginbotham argued that “mercantile realism” was the emerging form of international
competition, in which powerful states will pursue “economic balancing” and geoeconomic
interests might be pursued at the expense of more traditional political and security object-
ives. 12 In one version of this argument, by Lester Thurow, the post-Cold War world would
be dominated by three regional powers: a U.S.-led bloc centered around NAFTA, a European
bloc led by Germany, and an Asian bloc organized by Japan. 13
Some American government officials at this time also worried about a return to a com-
petitive multipolar system. During the last years of the first Bush administration, Defense
Department officials, led by Paul Wolfowitz, came forward with a strategic planning doc-
ument—the Defense Planning Guidance of 1992—charting America's global security chal-
lenges after the Cold War. A draft of the report argued that a central goal of American se-