Giving Compass' Take:

• Ali Wyne argues that superpowers can only truly occupy the global stage if they embrace a vision of world affairs, as the United States did following WWII through the creation of multilateral institutions.

• How does the retreat of the U.S. from the global stage - international trade deals, peace agreements, and the UN - impact civil society? How can civil society help form a better vision of world affairs? 

• Find out why cutting aid to the UN can undermine American interests.

A growing number of observers are once more expressing concern over the erosion of U.S. preeminence. The United States has defied many declinist predictions in the postwar era. While the latest one may, too, prove premature, it is not without cause.

The Sydney-based think tank the Lowy Institute concluded that while the United States is still the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific, China will become the preeminent regional power by 2030.

A power rises to preeminence not simply by dint of the force it wields, but by virtue of the vision it embodies: It promulgates a conception of world affairs that attracts others, enabling it to advance its objectives and amplify its values far more than it could do on its own. Washington has a significant edge over Beijing in this regard, one reason why we are less likely to witness a clean, discrete power transition between the two countries than an uncertain, fluid bilateral balance.

However comprehensive national power is defined, China will continue to grow relative to the United States. But history suggests that secular trends alone are not the be-all and end-all in terms of predicting preeminence. While the U.S. economy overtook Britain's in absolute size in the last quarter of the 19th century, Washington did not emerge as the world's preeminent power until the end of World War II.

Critically, though, the Truman administration harnessed that inheritance toward a strategic end: building a framework around the United States—grounded in multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank—that elevated collective interests over narrow ones and gave Washington an unrivaled ability to convene problem-solving coalitions.

Read the full article about a vision of world affairs by Ali Wyne at RAND.