THE 44th president of the United States will assume the job at a time when the country he (or she) leads will be stretched militarily, dependent on enormous daily inflows of oil and dollars, vulnerable to many of the darker manifestations of globalization and broadly unpopular. Few previous inhabitants of the Oval Office have started off with a situation of comparable difficulty.
But first, a rare piece of good news. Noticeably absent from the agenda will be great power conflict. This was the central dynamic of international relations for the past few centuries. But it no longer is and need not be for the 21st century. This will allow the next president to focus his energies on the signature challenges of this era, many of which are fostered by globalization. He can work not just with traditional friends like Europe, Japan and Australia, but also on occasion China, Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil-as partners rather than rivals.
The bad news for the United States is that support from its long-standing allies is far from assured. In the 21st century, formal alliances will increasingly count for less. Alliances require predictability: of threat, outlook, obligations. But it is precisely these characteristics that are likely to be in short supply in a world of shifting threats, differing perceptions, and societies with widely divergent readiness to maintain and use military force.
