1. For purposes of this essay, the "globalization" view might also be expressed as an integrationist or liberal analysis. The "power politics" perspective could also be called geopolitical or realpolitik.

2. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987).

3. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997).

4. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).

5. It has become commonplace to depict as isolationist any dissent from the tenet that the United States must provide world leadership, as if there were no other basis for U.S. international engagement. This view is refuted by numerous recent public opinion polls—e.g., Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (1995) and University of Maryland (1997)—which indicate that the majority of Americans want their country to be engaged internationally but would rather see it share than bear all the burdens of leadership.

6. The current flirtation between China and Russia seems more expedient than strategic. It helps China focus on Taiwan, and it is a way for Russia to signal displeasure over NATO expansion. It also gives the Russians a buyer and the Chinese a source for arms. But the basic behavior of both suggests an awareness that the future lies with transformation, integration, and cooperation with the United States, Europe and Japan. Russia has accepted a role short of membership in NATO and continues eagerly to pursue support from the IMF and other international financial institutions led, in effect, by the advanced democracies. Russia also accepted a role in the Group of Seven (now Eight) leading economies. China is even more oriented toward the advanced democratic powers, what with its growing trade, investment, and financial ties and its close consultations with the United States on such crucial matters as Korean security and the Asian financial crisis.

7. India could also become a power of this magnitude. But it will not get as much attention as China in this essay because it does not appear to be on a possible collision course with the United States.

8. The EU (in essence, the West European members of NATO) has the world's second largest and best collection of military power and the world's largest economy. In addition to being the closest technological rival of the United States, Japan could become a world class military power, with strategic and information-age weaponry, within a short time—perhaps a few years—of any (highly unlikely) decision to do so.

9. Michael Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics," American Political Science Review 80 (December 1986): 1151-69); and James Lee Ray, Democracy and International Conflict: An Examination of the Democratic Peace Proposition (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1995).

10. Fukuyama, ibid.