The multipolar world looks anything but post-American

From U.S. Playing Second Fiddle in Panama Canal Rebuild? by Walter Russell Mead. For too long, too many people have viewed global issues as zero sum equations - if you win then somehow in someway I must be losing. While this is certainly conceivably true, in most instances it is not and it is becoming less zero-sum all the time. When we insist on measuring ourselves against old measures of success without actually reflecting on what it is we truly wish to achieve, we almost inevitably begin to consider bad actions.

Real power in this world comes less from imposing your will on other people (always a tedious and expensive process and full of risk) than from figuring out how to align your interests and theirs. Over time, the United States has gotten much better at this, with the result that there is less difference between a ‘unipolar’ world and a multipolar one than many people understand.

As France fights jihadis in Mali, Panama improves the Canal, the Gulf Arabs lead the charge against Iran, and India and Japan think about Asian security together, the multipolar world looks anything but post-American.