The Decline of the West: Why America Must Prepare for the End of Dominance - Charles A. Kupchan - International - The Atlantic: American primacy is not as resilient as Kagan thinks. His most serious error is his argument that Americans need not worry about the ascent of new powers because only Europe and Japan are losing ground to them; the United States is keeping pace. It's true that the U.S. share of global output has held at roughly 25 percent for several decades. It's also the case that "the rise of China, India, and other Asian nations ... has so far come almost entirely at the expense of Europe and Japan, which have had a declining share of the global economy." But this is not, as Kagan implies, good news for the United States.
The long run of Western hegemony has been the product of teamwork, not of America acting alone.