CANBERRA -- As the sole remaining superpower, not only does the United States have no peer competitor, its dominance is unmatched across a whole range of issues and areas of activity in world affairs.
Nevertheless, the U.S. is not the only actor in world affairs. Many countries are America's traditional friends and allies of long-standing. The gap between their total capacity and the military, economic, diplomatic and information technology assets that can be deployed by Washington on any issue, in any theater of the world, has grown alarmingly wider over the course of the past decade. U.S. dependence on allies has diminished from the Persian Gulf to the Kosovo and Afghanistan wars.
U.S. interest in, and commitment to, multilateral regimes has waned in parallel to its accelerating dominance of the world stage. Paradoxically, the interests of its allies and friends have veered sharply toward multilateralism.