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after which America could again withdraw, allowing the postulated underlying harmonious pattern of the world to reassert itself.

Much of America's foreign policy has traditionally been presented in alternately psychiatric and theological terms: either as a means by which relations among nations could be conducted as they might be if they were relations among individuals, or when that did not seem possible, as a crusade to destroy or, even better, to convert antagonists to the American perception of international affairs. In that sense, the Cold War and victory in the Cold War were a culmination of the special mission of international affairs.

How many historical examples, if any, can be recalled where a nation's leaders stated goals that, some forty years later, were practically all achieved? That is the position in which America finds itself at the end of the Cold war. But what Americans have not sufficiently

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understood is that foreign policy knows no plateaus; even
the greatest achievement--perhaps especially the greatest
achievement--leads to a decline if it is not the building
block of a new advance.

For the first time in its history, America will be
obliged to conduct a global foreign policy in the absence of
an overwhelming ideological or strategic enemy, and in a
world from which it can neither withdraw nor dominate.
Thus, the classic maxim of American foreign policy--the
invocation of an overwhelming crisis transmuted into large-
scale enterprises--does not apply.

Paradoxically this occurs while the United States is
the only remaining superpower. But military power by itself
represents a simplistic assessment of the emerging
international reality. For the issues susceptible to
solution by military action are in decline. The kind of
power in which the United States excels is less and less

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relevant to most foreseeable international crises. On the other hand, economics and technology are becoming much more evenly crucial. Even a cursory glance at the condition of the dollar makes it clear that the relative economic position of the United States is not what it was even a few years ago.

The current world contains six or seven major global players whose ability to affect nonmilitary decisions is essentially comparable. In such an international order, the United States faces the more typical traditional foreign policy problem of global players of comparable operational strength. In it, there are only two roads to stability: one is hegemony based on a country's dominance; the other is equilibrium, which is another way of describing the notorious balance of power. The trouble is that the American body politic tends to reject both approaches. Hegemony will prove physically draining; the American public

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seems determined to reject the role of global policeman
which hegemony implies, and the course runs counter to the
moral convictions of the American people. But balance of
power has been historically rejected by the American
political and intellectual communities as a source of
endless tensions--though at crucial periods, such as in
deciding to enter the two world wars to preserve the global
balance of power, Americans have been prepared to overcome
their prejudice. Still, a call to rely on the national
interest is considered by many a revolutionary, if not a
reactionary, proposition. And even when an attempt is made
to apply ~~complement~~ the concept, the national interest continues
to be defined in sweeping, ideological terms.

Yet the reality is that the emerging world order will
have to be based on some concept of equilibrium, at least
some concept of balance among its various regions. In
practice, this requires a balancing of dissatisfactions. It

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is impossible for every participant in an international
system to be perfectly satisfied with every aspect and at
all times; that happy condition has never been achieved by
humanity. Still, it may be possible for the major players
to be sufficiently satisfied that they do not seek to
overthrow the international system by violence, terrorism,
economic warfare, or certain other methods so well
elaborated in our century. This would be the modern
definition of the balance of power.

But while post-Cold War foreign policy reflects some
traditional patterns, there are important differences as
well. For one thing, modern economics has changed the
nature of incentives. Historically, nations could affect
changes in the balance only by conquest. Modern technology
permits quantum changes in a society's power by changes
entirely within its own territory. No conceivable conquest
could augment a nation's power like the acquisition of