America’s Decline? Toward an Imperfect Multipolar World

Abstract

Much has been written about America’s decline and indeed in the 2000s the US economy has shown a relative economic decline, while wars and social and political tensions have reduced its inner solidity and its international appeal. Nonetheless, the US remains the top economic, financial, political, and military power in the world. Many factors, however, contribute to a US decline and to a partial rebalancing trend in economic and global power: the impetuous rise of other giant economies such as China and India; the partial recovery of Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the severe transition crisis; the vast, though fragile, unification project in Europe; the growth of some emerging countries; the ferments and dangers coming from the Islamic world; and so on. We are thus gradually moving toward an imperfect multipolar world, which we have called imperfect because of the vast differences in power and cohesion existing among the various poles. A few concluding remarks will complete our general picture.