Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the United States is the town's only sheriff and the locks are off the doors—but in addition to
this, the town's biggest menace to public safety has disappeared. So the town worries a great
deal about the sheriff's conduct while their dependence on him for protection has decreased.
Old bargains and restraints erode. The United States is powerful enough to block, disrupt, and
punish. But in the absence of cooperation by other states, Washington is doomed to a cycle
of foreign policy failure and declining public approval, which further reduces the availability
of usable American power—and the entire grand strategic vision is thrown into crisis.
Conclusion
The end of the Cold War was less the beginning of a new era than the completion of an
old era. It was the continuation of a liberal ascendancy that had begun two centuries before
and struggled through the world wars and bipolar rivalry in the twentieth century. With
the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Western system—built in the shadow of the Cold
War—emerged as the organizational logic for the larger global system. The inside liberal or-
der became the outside order. The American-led system provided the organizational logic for
the expansion of democracy, markets, and liberal international order. By the end of the cen-
tury, it was possible to see the globe as a one-world system bound together by multilateral
rules and institutions, a globalizing form of capitalism, and American political leadership.
At the same time, and at a deeper level, the global system was also transforming. These
shifts that have unsettled the American-led liberal hegemonic order are, ironically, develop-
ments that largely flow from the logic of that order. The Western liberal order was expanding
outward, but it was also evolving. The logic of this transformation is captured in the imagery
of the Westphalian system. The older logic of order—the Westphalian order—was defined
by a balance and equilibrium of power among several major states. It was either a multipolar
system, shaped by a grouping of five or six great powers, or a bipolar system, defined by
the rivalry between two superpowers. After the Cold War, this logic gave way to a unipolar
system. At the same time, slowly over the decades, the norms of state sovereignty have also
evolved and eroded. The old normative protections of sovereignty are not fully extinguished,
but they have given way to the human rights revolution and new ideas about the responsib-
ility to protect and contingent sovereignty for weak countries. A world of states has evolved
into a political formation with a center and a more complex array of norms about legitimacy
and authority.
It was at this juncture that the Bush administration, in the wake of September 11, launched
its efforts to overhaul the global security system. The new administration embraced the logic
of a post-Westphalian world and offered a new hegemonic bargain with the world. It was
a vision that did not just put the United States at the center of the global system but also
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