In an editorial in the Washington Post titled “Where’s the American empire when we need it?” (Kaplan, n.d.), Robert D. Kaplan worries about the recent decline in America’s capacity to respond to events that threaten to destabilize the international security system. Kaplan is concerned that the slow but steady erosion of American power will leave the current administration little choice but to recalibrate its international security commitments to better reflect America’s increasing inability to effectively fulfill its security obligations as the lone superpower in the post-Cold War era. If the United States is compelled to vacate some of its international security responsibilities, then for Kaplan the important question is who among the other powers in the system will assume the obligations that the United States can no longer fulfill?
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