Another splendid article from Policy Review Online on How America Should Lead into the foreseeable future. Must reading.
We believe that American power could be most effectively perpetuated and expanded, and the interests of America’s allies best served, by engaging in the construction of international institutions and practices more closely aligned to emergent security challenges. Current alliances and institutions are not ideally suited to the task. At the same time, the expanse of American power and the constraining efforts of allies are leading America to forgo international cooperation — to its own detriment. The critical tests of American power in the twenty-first century will be whether the U.S. has the vision to lead the design of an international architecture that fosters American interests and the interests of other states, as did the post-World War ii architecture, and whether it can do so in ways that share the burden of sustaining this order so that it becomes self-reinforcing.