This chapter introduces the paradox of world power by questioning how long the United States can retain its primacy in the international system when faced with increasing intermestic constraints and challenges. On the one hand, the United States exercises unprecedented hard power in the form of military and economic might while enjoying vast cultural and value-oriented soft power through the Internet, media, and the process of globalization itself. On the other hand, the success attendant to unipolarity raises challenges that are rooted in the nation’s history, culture, domestic institutions, and involvement in a turbulent and competitive world system.

This chapter also discusses the difficulties of maintaining power when the costs of dominance increase and the rates of return on power decrease, such as the increasing costs of national defense and the large U.S. trade deficit. The United States also faces backlash against its power from a fierce antiglobalization movement, which rejects the increased free-market and expansionary efforts of the developed world. Yet, perhaps the most direct challenge to U.S. power stems from terrorist actions, both at home and abroad, which are driven by a multitude of factors including religious, political, and ideological movements. In direct response to terrorism and the challenge to U.S. primacy presented by the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States followed the Bush Doctrine, calling for preventive action against perceived threats. This resulted in strained global relations with friends and foes alike questioning the continued legitimacy of a world in which the United States was the guarantor of security.

Although the Obama administration came into office with an avowed agenda of restoring diplomatic cordiality while promoting U.S. enmeshment in the liberal international order, the task has been far from easy. The administration has worked to end the war in Iraq and withdrawal troops from Afghanistan, the global financial crisis alongside domestic issues such as economic reforms and the healthcare debate dominated the first part of the president’s first term. Still, challenges to the foreign policy agenda have already presented themselves, and Obama faces serious difficulties in dealing with issues such as unrest in North Africa and the Middle East, the rise of China, environmental concerns and the global commons, and nuclear proliferation.

Even so, the challenges facing the United States are not all international and are in fact manifested in the culture, institutional design, and civil society that make up the country’s foreign policy process. Culturally, the United States has a foreign policy that is considered both moralistic and self-interested, stemming from geographical factors and colonial history. These two tendencies are often in conflict with one another, which frequently makes U.S. foreign policy seem schizophrenic. The domestic institutions involved in making U.S. foreign policy are often considered flawed by design; the founders’ plan for a system of shared and overlapping powers makes conflict between departments, agencies, and other actors inevitable. Foreign policy making from this perspective is difficult and often incremental because the actors are unsure where the true power or sovereignty of U.S. foreign affairs rests. The U.S. political system is also permeable, as it allows international and domestic groups to influence policy actors through lobbying, exchanges, and donations. In such a transnational society, the media, interest groups, think tanks, and international organizations may all constrain U.S. foreign policy actions.