Zbigniew brzezinski

BEYOND THE LAST GLOBAL SUPERPOWER 
In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of 
hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly 
global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last. 
That is so not only because nation-states are gradually becoming increasingly permeable but also because 
knowledge as power is becoming more diffuse, more shared, and less constrained by national boundaries. 
Economic' power is also likely to become more dispersed. In the years to come, no single power is likely to 
reach the level of 30 percent or so of the world's GDP that America sustained throughout much of this century, 
not to speak of the 50 percent at which it crested in 1945. Some estimates suggest that by the end of this decade, 
America will still account for about 20 percent of global GDP, declining perhaps to about 10-15 percent by 
2020 as other powers—Europe, China, Japan—increase their relative share to more or less the American level. 
But global economic preponderance by a single entity, of the sort that America attained in the course of this 
century, is unlikely, and that has obviously far-reaching military and political implications. 
Moreover, the very multinational and exceptional character of American society has made it easier for 
America to universalize its hegemony without letting it appear to be a strictly national one. For example, an 
effort by China to seek global primacy would inevitably be viewed by others as an attempt to impose a national 
hegemony. To put it very simply, anyone can become an American, but only a Chinese can be Chinese—and 
that places an additional and significant barrier in the way of any essentially national global hegemony. 
Accordingly, once American leadership begins to fade, America's current global predominance is unlikely to 
be replicated by any single state. Thus, the key question for the future is "What will America bequeath to the 
world as the enduring legacy of its primacy?" 
The answer depends in part on how long that primacy lasts and on how energetically America shapes a 
framework of key power partnerships that over time can be more formally institutionalized. In fact, the window 
ofTiistorical opportunity for America's constructive exploitation of its global power could prove to be relatively 
brief, for both domestic and external reasons. A genuinely populist democracy has never before attained 
international supremacy. The pursuit of power and especially the economic costs and human sacrifice that the 

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exercise of such power often requires are not generally congenial to democratic instincts. Democratization is 
inimical to imperial mobilization. 
Indeed, the critical uncertainty regarding the future may well be whether America might become the first 
superpower unable or unwilling to wield its power. Might it become an impotent global power? Public opinion 
polls suggest thai only a small minority (13 percent) of Americans favor the proposition that "as the sole 
remaining superpower, the U.S. should continue to be the preeminent world leader in solving international 
problems." An overwhelming majority (74 percent) prefer that America "do its fair share in efforts to solve 
international problems together with other countries."3 
3. "An Emerging Consensus—A Study of American Public Attitudes on America's Role in the World" (College 
Park: Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, July 1996). It is noteworthy, 
but not inconsistent with the foregoing, that studies by the above center, conducted in early 1997 (under 
principal investigator Steven Kull), also showed a considerable majority in favor of NATO expansion (62