The Great Transformation and the Failure of Illiberal Hegemony - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 161

curity policy must be to block the rise of rival states or peer competitors. “Vague as it was,
this language seemed to apply to Japan, Germany or a united Europe, as well as to China and
Russia,” as James Mann observes. “The draft said the United States should discourage the
'advanced industrial nations' from challenging America's leadership, in part by taking their
countries' interests into account but also through unmatched military strength.” 14 The leaked
document triggered criticism from Europeans and others offended by the suggestion that the
United States would seek to block the advance of its allies. The revised document dropped
this language but the central argument remained that America must maintain its commanding
military position and, in the report's words, “preclude any hostile power from dominating a
region critical to our interests.” 15
What these and other views reflected was the assumption that the Cold War was an es-
sential glue that held the advanced industrial countries together, dampening conflict and fa-
cilitating cooperation. Conflict and instability among major states would return. Order and
cohesion in the West are a result of cooperation to balance against an external threat, in this
case the Soviet Union, and with the disappearance of the threat, alliance partnership and co-
operation will decline. The expectation was that with the end of the Soviet threat, the West,
and particularly the security organizations such as NATO, would weaken and eventually re-
turn to a pattern of strategic rivalry. 16
But none of these expectations came to pass. In the years that followed the end of the
Cold War, relations among the advanced industrial countries remained stable and open. Dur-
ing the 1990s, the Cold War alliances were reaffirmed. NATO increased its membership
and the U.S.-Japan alliance was deepened. Trade and investment across these regions has
grown and institutionalized cooperation in some areas has expanded. There are several sur-
prises here about the post-Cold War distribution of power and the responses to it. Rather than
a return to a multipolar distribution of power, the United States emerged during the 1990s
as a unipolar state. It began the decade as the only superpower, and it grew faster than its
European and Japanese partners. Likewise, the realist expectation of a return to the prob-
lems of anarchy—great-power rivalry and security competition—did not emerge. Europe and
Japan remained tied to the United States through security alliances, and Russia and China did
not engage in great-power balancing.
Expansion and Integration of Liberal Order
With the sudden end of the Cold War, this inside order survived and provided the organizing
logic of the post-Cold War global system. The decade of the 1990s became a “liberal mo-
ment.” Democracy and markets flourished around the world, globalization was enshrined
as a progressive world-historical force, and ideology, nationalism, and war were at a low