Rooting for American power is the best option in this dangerous world

This article was adapted from the introduction to Shadi Hamid’s new book “The Case for American Power.”

When American power seemed uncontested after the Cold War, a growing number of Americans could afford to imagine a world with less of it. It was peacetime. The United States had no real competitors, and political elites in Western democracies took for granted their own permanence. Around the globe, Americans saw more friends than enemies, but even our enemies — weak as they were — could be transformed into friends. Or so the thinking went. Those easy assumptions are now lost to history.