Since the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, no nation has enjoyed the power and influence the United States enjoys today. While certain nations have always stood out as more powerful than others, the international system has for centuries been governed by some balance of power between multiple states rather than the hegemony of one. Today, that is no longer the case. Whatever the measure of influence – from forms of “hard power” such as military might and economic resources to forms of “soft power” such as cultural and scientific influence—there is no question that the resources and capabilities of the United States are far greater than those of any other nation and almost any combination of other nations. But how long will this epoch of American supremacy last? And what are the consequences of American power, both for the United States and the rest of the world? And how should the United States shape its long-term foreign policy, or “grand strategy,” to maximize the positive consequences and minimize the negative ones?

Such are questions addressed by Josef Joffe in Uberpower: The Imperial Temptation of America (W. W. Norton, 2006). A professor at Stanford University and publisher of the German weekly Die Zeit (among other impressive credentials), Joffe provides a fresh and engaging approach to a subject he is certainly not the first to visit. Seamlessly integrating international relations theory, historical analogy, and journalistic interviews, Joffe provides insightful and balanced analysis in a lucid and witty style. He concludes that even if some aspects of US foreign policy are unwise, all in all US power operates as a positive force in the world, serving, among other benefits, to suppress traditional power rivalries by guaranteeing the security of all nations against all others. France and Germany could never have become allies, he points out, without the security of each being guaranteed against the other by the United States. The challenge for the United States, he argues, is to sufficiently restrict and moderate its actions to ensure that other nations will embrace US power with all its global benefits rather than attempt to undermine it to the detriment of all.

Joffe does not, however, state these arguments in a single, conclusive thesis. Rather, they emerge slowly throughout the book, whose chapters do not form a single uninterrupted narrative so much as a series of complementary essays. This approach allows Joffe not only to make his core argument but also to explore such related issues as the origins of US primacy, the connections and distinctions between Americanization and modernization, and the sources and implications of anti-Americanism. The downside of Uberpower’s disconnected chapters is that it leads to substantial redundancy, with some sentences repeated almost verbatim in different chapters.

Moreover, while Uberpower is ostensibly a study of the United States’ role in the world, at times it reads more like an exposition on transatlantic relations. Joffe substantially underestimates the importance of regions besides Europe to the United States’ global position. Joffe is correct in arguing that the challenges posed to the United States by terrorist organizations and rogue states of the Middle East, while certainly threatening to US national security, do not truly threaten US primacy. However, he severely undervalues the potential challenges to US influence from the rising powers of East Asia, probably the most important region for future US foreign policy. And Latin America, the United States’ traditional “backyard” and historically among the most important regions for US foreign policy, is barely mentioned in the entire book.

Most substantially, Joffe is far too quick to dismiss the growing power and influence of China and the threat it poses to US global primacy. He is certainly right to point out that, in terms of both militarily and economic strength, China is far from catching up to the United States. But China does not need to match the United States in strength to project sufficient global influence to end US global primacy. China’s power must simply rival that of the United States, not equal it, to create a world with both Chinese and US centers of global power.

Already, China has made significant strides in increasing its global political and economic influence. The effort has been concentrated in East and Southeast Asia, where China has been promoting a myriad of agreements and institutions linking itself to the region’s nations. A recent manifestation of this was the December 2005 “ASEAN Plus Three Security Summit” that included China, Japan, and South Korea but excluded the United States and Australia. Yet China’s growing influence has extended all the way to Latin America, where China has capitalized on growing resentment toward the United States and the emergence of an anti-US bloc led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In a 2004 trip to Latin America, Chinese President Hu Jintao signed 39 accords with various nations, and current Chinese trade and investment in Latin American exceeds US$50 billion.

Joffe counters those who fear China’s rising power by arguing that China’s bid for East Asian supremacy—let alone global superpower status—will be undermined by traditional rivalries with regional powers like Japan and Korea. This argument is certainly logical, but does not seem supported by the facts on the ground. So far, China’s relations with traditional rivals like Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand have improved as China’s power has grown, not weakened. And in regions outside East Asia—particularly Latin America—it may be traditional rivalries with the United States that drive countries to China’s camp. China’s ascendancy as a true superpower is far from assured, but for the moment, to quote Marvin C. Ott of the National War College, “there is a strategic contest (a ‘Great Game’) underway and one player has developed a sophisticated strategy and has already collected a number of chips; the other player does not have a strategy and acts like it is unaware the game has started. So far, the US is losing the game.”

All this is not to say that Joffe’s recommendations for United States grand strategy are incorrect. Indeed, in light of China’s growing influence, Joffe’s prescriptions for maintaining US primacy are all the more urgent: ensure that potential rivals have closer ties to the United States than to each other and agree to some restraints on the use of the United States’ own power through friendly institutions like NATO. These objectives are right on the mark. Joffe’s fault lies in misjudging how difficult they will be to achieve in regions besides Europe.