August 11, 2016
THE NEXT administration will confront the paradox of American power: unparalleled strength, but a deep disinclination to exercise leadership. This strength will allow the next president to inherit certain enduring advantages. No competing world power threatens American security. The United States remains the undisputed global leader in military, economic and diplomatic terms, and is likely to be for the foreseeable future. U.S. influence is enhanced by international institutions largely of America’s own creation that favor the rule of law, the free market and representative democracy, and a network of alliances with many of the world’s most powerful countries. The United States faces no global ideological rival that offers a more appealing alternative to a social contract based on individual freedom, economic opportunity and human dignity.
At the same time, the world today and America’s place in it are less certain than before. Europe’s inward focus has weakened Washington’s most important alliance. The eruptions throughout the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring have spread new misery across the region. The ranks of refugees and internally displaced persons have swollen to a post–World War II record of sixty-five million, half of whom are children. Three powers, China, Russia and Iran, seek to revise their regions through subversion and military force, intimidating U.S. friends and allies and undermining American credibility. A fourth, North Korea, continues to improve its nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile capabilities unabated. The proliferation of terrorists, insurgents and other armed nonstate actors, some with global reach, have undercut the traditional state monopoly on the use of force. For the past decade or more, there has also been a menu of “new” security issues, led by cyberwarfare, but including climate change, infectious diseases, narcotics and human trafficking, and increasingly, natural resources, especially water.
