by Bill O’Grady

This report is the second installment of our four-part series on The New World Order.  This week we will focus on two themes.  First, we will examine the global public goods the superpower provides, and second, we will analyze how the U.S. has provided those goods.  The global hegemon will often face tensions between the desires of domestic constituencies and its foreign obligations.  Every superpower has to negotiate these pressures and each tends to have its own particular ways of meeting both objectives.  However, it should be noted that no superpower can subjugate the goals and aspirations of its citizens indefinitely.  In other words, if the cost of hegemony becomes too high, a nation may be unable to maintain the position.  History shows that no superpower dominates forever.  History also shows that there are sometimes “gap” periods between superpowers; unlike 1945, the changeover is not always simultaneous.  I believe the evolution we are currently seeing, which will be discussed in Parts III and IV, will keep the U.S. as the reigning hegemon but with a much different manner of exercising that role.

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