Home › Features › Essays › The Unipolar Moment

The Unipolar Moment

Charles Krauthammer
America and the World 1990
Summary -- 

Thinking about post-Cold War US foreign policy has been led astray by three conventionally-accepted but mistaken assumptions about the character of the post-Cold War environment (1) that the world is now multipolar, whereas it is in fact unipolar, with the USA the sole superpower, at least for present policy purposes (2) that the US domestic consensus favours internationalism rather than isolationism (3) that in consequence of the Soviet collapse, the threat of war has substantially diminished.

Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated columnist. This article is adapted from the author's Henry M. Jackson Memorial Lecture delivered in Washington, D.C., Sept. 18, 1990.

We're sorry, but Foreign Affairs does not have the copyright to display this article online.

Related

Essay, May/June 2008
The Future of American Power
Fareed Zakaria

Despite some eerie parallels between the position of the United States today and that of the British Empire a century ago, there are key differences. Britain's decline was driven by bad economics. The United States, in contrast, has the strength and dynamism to continue shaping the world -- but only if it can overcome its political dysfunction and reorient U.S. policy for a world defined by the rise of other powers.

Read
Essay, Spring 1987
CONTAINMENT: 40 Years Later : On Ending the Cold War
Walt W. Rostow

Asks (1) why the postwar Soviet thrust for hegemony over Western Eurasia seemed a possible dream to Moscow (2) why the US reaction came so late. Answers that (1) it involved mixed impulses of fear and ambition deeply rooted in Russia's history, ideology and technological capacity (2) US foreign policy had a strong antagonism to the Old World balance-of-power politics. This came to an end with the Truman doctrine and the Marshall Plan. But the cold war which ensued will have a 'soft landing' rather than turn hot, because the USSR is not a great power in the new technological and educational revolutions which will be the bases of power in the future. The problems are now how to harness the new bases of power and how to prevent any one state from achieving hegemony. This picture of the modern world, largely constructed and painted by the USA, is slowly being perceived by the USSR.

Read
Essay, Summer 1988
Bipartisan Objectives for American Foreign Policy
Henry A. Kissinger and Cyrus Vance

If the USA is to sustain its role in the world, it needs a bipartisan foreign policy. "There is a strategic opportunity for a significant improvement in Soviet-American relations", while NATO needs redefinition as a guard against utopianism and in the light of economic integration in Europe. Also notes the US budget problem and relations with Japan and China. In the Middle East, supports guaranteed Israeli and Palestine states. Reviews pan-American issues. In general calls for "more selective and collaborative strategies based on new realities". Former US secretaries of state. The footnotes indicate the points on which the authors disagree, viz (1) the future of SDI (2) directions of arms control in the future (3) the value of an international conference on the Middle East.

Read
Cover image

In the Magazine

July/August 2009 / 4, 88
Essay
Africa's Capitalist Revolution
Ethan B. Kapstein

Many economies in Africa have remained largely sheltered from the global financial crisis. To keep economic development there on track, the West must avoid protectionist impulses.
Read