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Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity ~ A era of unprecedented peace appears to be at hand as the twenty-first century draws near. The world’s major powers enjoy cooperative relations, democracy is taking root in many countries that have long suffered under authoritarian rule, and the world economy is becoming increasingly liberalized and integrated. Contrary to the dire predictions of a return to a Hobbesian world, the end of the Cold War has not been accompanied by the fragmentation of international order and the emergence of rivalry among atomistic national units.’ A sobering reality, however, must temper optimism about the emerging international landscape. The peace and prosperity of the current era rely too heavily on a single ingredient: American power. The United States serves as a critical extraregional balancer in Europe and East Asia, is the catalyst behind multilateral efforts to combat aggression and peacefully resolve long-standing disputes, and is the engine behind the liberalization of the world economy. But America’s preponderance and its will to underwrite international order will not last indefinitely. Even if the U.S. economy grows at a healthy rate, America ’s share of world product and its global influence will decline as other large countries develop and become less enamored of following America’s lead.2 ~~~ Charles A. Kupckan is Associate Professor of International Relations at Georgefourn University and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The author would like to thank participants in seminars at the following institutions for their thoughtful comments: Hebrew University, Columbia University, University of California at San Diego, Council on Foreign Relations, Georgetown University, University of California at Berkeley, Harvard University, Okazaki Institute (Tokyo), the American Center (Tokyo), and the Danish Institute of International Affairs (Copenhagen). The critiques of Michael Barnett, &chard Betts, Albert Fishlow, Gary Hufbauer, Clifford Kupchan, Joseph Lepgold, Gideon Rose, Peter Trubowitz, Ole Waever, Fareed Zakaria, and the reviewers of International Security were particularly helpful. For research assistance, I would like to thank Jason Davidson, D e l p h e Park, and Mira Sucharov. 1. See, for example, John J. Mearsheimer, ”Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990),pp. 5-56. 2. For general analysis of the secular processes through which the locus of preponderant power changes over time, see Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1981). During the second half of the twentieth century, US. economic output has fallen from roughly one-half to one-quarter of gross world product. SeeJeffreyFrankel, Regional Tradirig Blocs in the World Economic System (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1997),p. 6. Internntronal Security, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Fall 1998), pp. 40-79 01998by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 40 After Pax Americana 1 41 Furthermore, the American electorate will tire of a foreign policy that saddles the United States with such a disproportionate share of the burden of managing the international system. America‘s unipolar moment will not last long. To assume that international order can indefinitely rest on American hegemony is both illusory and dangerous. How should the prospect of waning American power affect the conduct of American grand ~trategy?~ Several prominent schools of thought suggest that the decline of American hegemony need not be cause for concern; peace will outlast American preponderance. The optimists contend that democracy, globalization , the spread of international institutions, and changes in the sources of state power are eroding national boundaries and making warfare an obsolete tool of ~tatecraft.~ The end of the twentieth century, however, is not the first time in history that students of international politics have proclaimed an end to war. In the years leading up to World War I and again during the interwar period, scholars and diplomats alike argued that economic interdependence ;technological innovation, and societalaversion to the horrors of war were making armed conflict a historical artifa~t.~ If today‘s optimists prove to be as wrong as yesterday’s, there is good reason to be worried about the potential consequences of a relative decline in U.S. power...

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