I heard an interview this weekend that amounted to something of a book review on National Public Radio. The book was The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise.

The book, by Nina Hachigan and Mona Sutphen, looks at the changing dynamics of superpower relationships and draws the conclusion that the fundamental nature of those relationships is changing in a way that could mean the end of the sort of Cold War adversarial patterns that we've come to expect.

In short, the ability of small groups and rouge nations to disrupt economic activity and violate the security of even a superpower in the world today, according to the authors, means that superpowers are more interested in cooperation than in competition or confrontation.

The Center for American Progress took a look at the book. Here is a brief quote from them:

This is a rare moment in history: none of the world's big powers is our adversaries. In The Next American Century, Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen show that the "pivotal powers"-China, Europe, India, Japan, and Russia-seek greater influence, but each has an enormous stake in the world economy and a keen desire to thwart common threats.... None of these countries is a direct military or ideological challenger. In fact, their gains largely help, rather than hurt, America's continuing prosperity, growth, and, to some extent, even its values.

The Next American Century looks to be an interesting read. Hopefully it will help the American public to understand the positive aspects of its relationship with China, and with the world's other new and rising superpowers...