In May 1999 the Oxford Union debated the proposition, "Resolved, the United States is a rogue state." The resolution was ultimately defeated, but around the world there is growing unease about a global order dominated by American power--power unprecedented, unrestrained and unpredictable. The unease is felt even by America's closest allies. "The United States of America today predominates on the economic level, the monetary level, on the technological level, and in the cultural area in the broadest sense of the word", French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine observed in a speech in Paris in early 1999. "It is not comparable, in terms of power and influence, to anything known in modern history." European diplomats, following Védrine's coining of the term, have begun calling the United States a "hyperpower." During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States kept each other in check. Today the restraints are less evident, and this has made American power increasingly controversial.
This is an unexpected turn of events. Just a little over a decade ago many pundits argued that the central problem of U.S. foreign policy was the graceful management of the country's decline. Paul Kennedy's famous book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, argued that the United States would go the way of all great powers--down. Japan was on the rise and Europe was awakening. World politics after the Cold War, it was widely assumed, was to be profoundly multipolar.
