After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made

by Ben Rhodes

He began by offering an amendment to my focus on the 2008 financial crisis. “I think you need to recognize the transitory nature of the post–Cold War moment,” he said. “There have been two artificial periods in our history when we were the dominant power in the world. The U.S. post–World War II, and post–Cold War.” After World War II, he pointed out, we were both exhausted by the experience of war and afraid of the prospect of another one—thus beginning the “elongated reason cycle,” that methodical effort to establish an international order of institutions, laws, and norms aimed at preventing another world war. There was no similar dynamic after the Cold War. “It was going to come to an end at some point,” he said. “Even before the crisis, Chinese economic power was ascendant and Russia had figured out that it could be a mafia-authoritarian state; 2008 was an accelerant to that process.”