For more than 70 years, starting in the middle of World War II, the United States bestrode the world like a colossus. Its economy and military emerged from the war not just unscathed but also supreme. Its institutions of governance—a unified Department of Defense, a system of far-flung military commands, the National Security Council, specialized agencies for international development, and so on—were those of an effective global hegemon. Even when it was locked in a mortal struggle with the alien and hostile ideology of communism, it held most of the winning cards. And as colossi do, it elicited resentment from those not content to live in its shadow.
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