Andrew Byers and Randall L. Schweller
The structure of unipolarity that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union bestowed the United States with enormous, unchecked power. The United States became the first country in history with no peer or near-peer competitors. It became the only one with influence in every region of the world and the only one to unquestionably dominate its own neighborhood. By 1992, the United States may have been the most powerful country in every major global theater.
For American officials, the natural temptation was to use this moment to expand the United States’ global influence. Drunk with power, Washington doggedly enlarged NATO into eastern Europe, paying little heed to Russian concerns about Western encroachment. It broadened its embrace of economic openness, supporting the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995, despite the potential threat its compulsory dispute settlement posed to national sovereignty. It also backed China’s membership in the organization in 2001. In the eyes of U.S. policymakers, this expansionist campaign was not just good for their country but also good for the world. Washington, like all hegemons, convinced itself that the world order it was creating was universally preferred to all others. It began to pursue what the international relations scholar Arnold Wolfers called “milieu goals,” or goals designed to make the world better conform to one country’s values.
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