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Английский язык для магистратуры
H
ow the W
orld W
orks
United States because it comes with the prospect of counterbalancing, increased dependence 
on the international economy, a greater need to maintain a favorable reputation to sustain co-
operation within international institutions, and greater challenges to American legitimacy’’ (p. 4). 
Brooks and Wohlforth conclude the ‘‘unprecedented concentration of power resources in the Unit-
ed States generally renders inoperative the constraining effects of the systemic properties long 
central to research in international relations’’ (p. 3). Building on their theoretical findings, Brooks 
and Wohlforth prescribe policy: the United States should use its ‘‘leverage to reshape international 
institutions, standards of legitimacy, and economic globalization’’ (p. 21). 
World Out of Balance demolishes the respective liberal IR theory, institutionalist, and construc-
tivist contentions about systemic constraints on US hegemony. However, Brooks and Wohlforth’s 
central claim — that unipolarity and concomitant US hegemony will last for a long time — fails 
to persuade. Indeed, there is a lot less to their argument for unipolar stability than meets the eye. 
Their case is based on a freeze-frame view of the distribution of capabilities in the international 
system that does not engage the argument that, like all hegemonic systems, the American era 
of unipolarity contains the seeds of its own demise both because, over time, a hegemon’s eco-
nomic leadership is undermined by the diffusion of know-how, technology, and managerial skills 
throughout the international system (which propels the rise of new poles of power), and leader-
ship costs sap the hegemon’s power pushing it into decline. 
Contrary to the argument in World Out of Balance, a strong case can be made that the early 
twenty-first century will witness the decline of US hegemony. Indeed, notwithstanding their claim 
that unipolarity is robust and US hegemony will endure well into the future, Brooks and Wohlforth 
actually concede that unipolarity is not likely to last more than another 20 years, which really is not 
very long at all (pp. 17, 218). This is a weak case for unipolarity, and also is an implicit admission 
that other states in fact are engaged in counterbalancing the United States and that this is spur-
ring an on-going process of multipolarization. 
The ascent of new great powers would be the strongest evidence of multipolarization, and the 
two most important indicators of whether this is happening are relative growth rates and shares 
of world GDP (Gilpin 1981; Kennedy 1987). Here, there is evidence that global economic power 
is flowing from the United States and Europe to Asia. The shift of economic clout to East Asia is 
important because it is propelling China’s rise — thus hastening the relative decline of US power. 
Unsurprisingly, Brooks and Wohlforth are skeptical about China’s rise, and they dismiss the 
idea that China could become a viable counterweight to a hegemonic United States within any 
meaningful time frame (pp. 40–45) Theirs is a static analysis, however, and does not reflect that 
although the United States still has an impressive lead in the categories they measure, the trend 
lines appear to favor China, which already has overtaken the United States as the world’s leading 
manufacturer — a crown the United States held for more than a century (Marsh 2008; Dyer 2009). 
China also may overtake the United States in GDP in the next ten to 15 years. Empirically, then, 
there are indications that the unipolar era is in the process of drawing to a close, and that the com-
ing decades could witness a power transition. 
Brooks and Wohlforth also maintain that unipolarity affords the United States a 20-year win-
dow of opportunity to recast the international system in ways that will bolster the legitimacy of its 
power and advance its security interests (pp. 216–218). Ironically, however, institutional reform is 
the arena where multipolarization’s effects already are being felt because — as was apparent dur-
ing the run-up to the April 2009 London meeting of the Group of 20 — the impetus for change 
is coming from China and the other emerging powers. Here, there is a big flaw in Brooks and 
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