In this essay, the author gives a pretty solid overview of the general arc of American thought since 1989. The basic conclusions is along the lines of, "America is no longer a superpower, and we gotta deal with it." Whether you take that at face value or not, the steps he takes to get to that conclusion are as important—if not more so—than the end.
Channeling Fukuyama, for example, President Bush announced in 2002 that there existed but “a single sustainable model for national success-freedom, democracy, and free enterprise.” Plausible alternatives simply did not exist: this was history’s irreversible judgment. Trumpeting the “unparalleled strength” of America’s armed forces, the president vowed to enhance that strength even further, thereby dissuading anyone from entertaining ambitions of “surpassing, or even equaling, the power of the United States.” Thus did Bush endorse the concept of unipolarity without actually using the word. The president likewise refrained from any explicit reference to hegemony. Yet in promulgating a doctrine of preventive war and in refusing to be encumbered by international norms not to its liking, his administration asserted hegemonic prerogatives. Along with all of this muscle-flexing came a Friedmanesque promise to “ignite a new era of global economic growth through free markets and free trade.”
