NEW YORK — It has become popular to suggest that when the dust settles from the global financial crisis, it may become clear that the United States-led postwar world has come to an end.
If so, the global system that has secured peace, security, openness and economic growth over the past six decades could be in grave danger.
Inspired by American leadership since World War II's end, Europe, then Japan, then much of Asia and the world rose to new levels of prosperity; the world economy globalized upon the foundation of international institutions, norms and standards; and foreign students educated in American universities returned home with new ideas about free markets, entrepreneurship and democracy.