"'The United States cannot afford another decline like that which has characterized the past decade and a half ... Only self-delusion can keep us from admitting our decline to ourselves.' -- Henry A. Kissinger, 1961. In the above words, one of America's most distinguished strategic thinkers and policymakers expresses alarm at America's condition and the perils it faces. The warning seems timely, yet it was written more than half a century ago as an assessment of the Soviet threat, problems with allies and the developing world, and in frustration with what the author saw as dangerously inadequate policy and strategic choices. Henry Kissinger was by no means alone. He cited George Kennan's lament about our domestic failings with race, the cities, the education and environment of our young people, and the gap between expert knowledge and popular understanding, even while criticizing Kennan's focus on those problems to the exclusion of military and diplomatic threats"-- Provided by publisher.

1. The American future : problems of primacy, policy, and purpose -- Primacy past and present -- Responses to decline -- Information, socialization, and national identity ; "Will versus wallet" in the American future -- 2. Domestic and global interactions : economics, energy, and American power -- Financial crises in perspective -- Competitiveness and crisis response -- The perils of oil import dependence -- Power and domestic capacity -- 3. American attitudes and institutions -- Public attitudes -- Domestic doctrine and policy -- Domestic capacity -- Challenges and challengers -- 4. Threats to persistent primacy and the rise of others -- Elusive dangers : volatility in threat assessment -- Thinking about threats -- The rise of others -- The rise of China -- Tangible threats and shifts in the international distribution of power -- Twenty-first-century realities -- 5. Stretch or "imperial overstretch"? -- Military costs and capabilities -- Problems of collective action : allies and burden sharing -- Limits of global governance -- Unipolarity and apolarity -- Commitments and political sustainability -- 6. Power and willpower in the American future -- Is this time different? -- America's edge -- Ideas, beliefs, and policies -- What is to be done at home -- What is to be done abroad -- Why the declinists are wrong again.