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That seems to me unmistakably true that we're American power in fact decline or

Americans to go sort of choose not to use their power and influence to uphold

this world order, we will get a different world order. Or more likely before

we get to a different world order, we'll go through a period of disorder which

is what happened after the European order fell after the British dominated world and

the European balance failed. So that seems to me something we ought to try to

avoid because disorder will be a lot uglier than we imagine it to be. And a lot of

our again complacent sense that great powers will never go to war against each other

ever again or that democracy is here to stay or that liberal capitalism has

simply triumphed. All this Frank Fukuyama end of history stuff I think is a myth and

we can go back. Democracy is in fact historically a rare flower. It's only been

dominance in the world for you know 30 or 40 years in the whole sweep of human history.

Those were the words of Brookings Institution scholar Robert Kagan during last

Tuesday's roundtable on the state of the international order. During it a panel

of Brookings foreign policy scholars discussed the structures that govern

international affairs, having in mind the passage of 10 years since the Iraq war

and five years since the global financial crisis. The event thus naturally touched

on among many other things, the ability of great world powers to ensure security.

...