Lurking in the decline-and-fall syndrome is the implication that all empires, like all mortals, must come and go, and that the chief reason for their demise is that the world is an inherently unmanageable place that eventually devours the strength of any and all superpowers that history selects for what is, in effect, an impossible mission. Based on the first quarter century of its reign as the sole superpower, the United States, which tends to regard itself as the “exceptional nation,” is not proving an exception to one of history’s most enduring narratives.
