http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... 5661.story
... Today's harsh realities cannot be dispelled by neoconservative name-calling ("Doormat diplomacy!") or liberal wishful thinking ("Smart power!"), but require a basic reconsideration of America's core foreign policy commitments.
For nearly two decades, the U.S. has been viewed as a global hegemon—vastly more powerful than any major country in the world. Since 2000, however, our global dominance has fallen dramatically. During the Bush administration, the self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq war, growing government debt, increasingly negative current account balances and other internal economic weaknesses cost the U.S. real power in a world of rapidly spreading knowledge and technology. Simply put, the main legacy of the Bush years has been to leave the U.S. as a declining power.
From Rome to the United States today, the rise and fall of great nations have been driven primarily by economic strength. At any given moment, a state's power depends on the size and quality of its military forces and other power assets. Over time, however, power is a result of economic strength—the prerequisite for building and modernizing military forces. And so the size of the economy relative to potential rivals ultimately determines the limits of power in international politics.
