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  • What Follows American Dominion?
    By Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
    Op-Ed
    April 16, 2008

  • Podcast: The Age of Nonpolarity
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  • Ask the Expert: What Comes After Unipolarity?
    By Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
    Op-Ed
    April 15, 2008

  • A Conversation with Chuck Hagel (Video)
    Video
    November 28, 2007

  • A Conversation with Chuck Hagel (Audio)
    Audio
    November 28, 2007

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  United States, Global Governance, U.S. Strategy and Politics

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  We Must Guard Against the Worst in a Nonpolar World

  Author:	Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations

  April 24, 2008
  The Daily Star

  Today’s world is dominated not by one or two or even several powers, but rather is influenced by dozens of state and nonstate actors exercising various kinds of power. A 20th century dominated first by a few states, then, during the Cold War, by two states, and finally by American preeminence at the Cold War’s end, has given way to a 21st century dominated by no one. Call it nonpolar.

  Three factors have brought this about. First, some states have gained power in tandem with their increased economic clout. Second, globalization has weakened the role of all states by enabling other entities to amass substantial power. And, third, American foreign policy has accelerated the relative decline of the United States vis-a-vis others. The result is a world in which power is increasingly distributed rather than concentrated.

  The emergence of a nonpolar world could prove to be mostly negative, making it more difficult to generate collective responses to pressing regional and global challenges. More decision-makers make it more difficult to make decisions. Nonpolarity also increases both the number and potential severity of threats, be they rogue states, terrorist groups, or militias.

  Still, if nonpolarity is inevitable, its character is not. A great deal can and should be done to shape the nonpolar world. But order will not emerge on its own. On the contrary, left to its own devices, a nonpolar world will become messier over time.

  View full text of article

• 

  New CFR Books

  

  In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world.

  

  In Regional Monetary Integration, Peter B. Kenen poses an important question: Should various country groups follow the lead of the European Monetary Union and form similar full-fledged monetary unions?

  

  Walter Russell Mead recounts the story of the centuries-long rivalry between the English- speaking peoples and their enemies in God and Gold.

  Complete list of CFR Books.

  

  

  New from the Council: Policy Options Papers

  Kenya

  In this POP, Adjunct Fellow Michelle D. Gavin suggests steps the Bush administration could take to promote political and ethnic reconciliation and to restore the viability of Kenya’s governing institutions.

  Pakistan

  In this paper, Senior Fellow Daniel Markey poses a set of recommendations for the United States to consider in response to Pakistan’s ongoing political crisis.

  

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