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The National Interest
Divides
by Josef Joffe
. . . Unwilling to conquer, this "empire" still needs order beyond its borders. The objective is the right "milieu", as Arnold Wolfers put it forty years ago. To achieve it, America must sometimes use force; to sustain it, however, the sword is not enough-and it is, in the end, too costly to use too often. To build the right coalitions for peace, the United States must not forsake the "co" in "coalition"-as in "consensus" and "cooperation." As Gulliver learned, it is hard enough to live even as a friendly giant among the pygmies. It is even harder to escape their slings and arrows when the giant's strength is untempered by self-restraint. For power, as this last quarter shows, shall be balanced.