The End of Arrogance: America in the Global Competition of Ideas

Free-market capitalism, hegemony, Western culture, peace, and democracy—the ideas that shaped world politics in the twentieth century and underpinned American foreign policy—have lost a good deal of their strength. Authority is now more contested and power more diffuse. Hegemony (benign or otherwise) is no longer a choice, not for the United States, for China, or for anyone else.

Steven Weber and Bruce Jentleson are not declinists, but they argue that the United States must take a different ...