Throughout the summer, we’re sharing essays from the Foreign Affairs archives that examine American statecraft and power and the history that shapes both. Next up is “The Unipolar Moment,” a seminal 1990 essay by the columnist Charles Krauthammer on the United States’ position in a changing global order.
“Ever since it became clear that an exhausted Soviet Union was calling off the Cold War, the quest has been on for a new American role in the world,” Krauthammer wrote. To him, that role was obvious: the United States would constitute “a single pole of world power.” It was, after all, “the only country with the military, diplomatic, political and economic assets to be a decisive player in any conflict in whatever part of the world it chooses to involve itself.”
With this unchallenged power, the United States couldn’t afford to retreat from the world even if it wanted to, Krauthammer argued. The century had seen fascism and communism defeated, but there would “constantly be new threats” disturbing the peace. “The alternative to unipolarity is chaos,” he warned. “If America wants stability, it will have to create it.”
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