How the USA lost its unquestioned place as defender of world peace

And is this about more than trans-Atlantic relations? Where do Russia and China fit in this post-Cold War world? If the US tells the world that it's all right to abandon arms treaties, why can't North Korea walk away from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?

If the US thinks it's fine to adopt a defence strategy of pre-emptive strikes against even those it only suspects are a threat, what about others which inevitably will refuse to wait for solid evidence or international legitimacy? Pakistan or India? Russia? China or Taiwan? Israel? Are we on the verge of another arms race if, when push comes to shove, a would-be nuclear power like North Korea can stare down the US? What rogue state looking at the recent experience of Iraq and North Korea would not opt for nuclear weapons?

And do Japan and South Korea decide that to keep the regional balance, they must go nuclear? If Iran leaps the nuclear hurdle, do Turkey and Saudi Arabia do likewise? And if US impatience totally discredits the notion of international weapons inspections in Iraq, how will we be sure what others are doing in the future? Will they be bombed, just in case?

Democratic double standards don't help either, particularly by a President who insists that he is driven by "moral clarity".

If Washington cosies up with Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Indonesia and Uzbekistan, it is not surprising that some around the world have difficulty believing its urgent desire to deliver democracy, human rights and freedom to the Iraqis and Palestinians. In its haste, Washington seems to have forgotten Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's friendly visit to Baghdad in the early '80s, even as Saddam was dropping gas on Iran in a war that Iraq started. And little thought is given to Washington's disastrous past dealings with the Shah in Iran, Mobutu in Zaire, Soeharto in Indonesia, Duarte in El Salvador, the Nigerian generals and Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party.

This is not simply an American problem. Just as Washington needs to adjust to changed circumstances, so too does Europe. Some in Europe box on as though little has changed. But it has, and they need to respond.

As Hirsh puts it:

"American power is the [key] ... It oversees the global system from unassailable heights, from space and from the seas. And if Bush has his way, this rise to hegemony will continue. As he said in his West Point speech: 'America has, and intends to keep, military strength beyond challenge.'"

But Hirsh sees a middle way between Europe's "squishy globalism" and Bush's "take-it-or-leave-it unilateralism".

"A new international consensus, built on a common vision of the international system, is possible," he says. "In today's world, American military and economic dominance is a decisive factor and must be maintained but mainly to be the shadow enforcer of the international system Americans have done so much to create in the last century.

"It's the international system and its economic and political norms that again must do the groundwork of keeping order and peace: deepening the ties that bind nations together; co-opting failed states such as Afghanistan, potential rogues and 'strategic competitors'; and isolating, if not destroying, terrorists."

However, in urging that the US has to listen as well as be heard, Georgetown University's Professor John Ikenberry, warns of dire consequences in the present US strategy: "[It] threatens to rend the fabric of the international community and political partnerships, precisely at a time when that community and those partnerships are urgently needed."