Does America still matter?

Martin Amis recently commented that Britain leads the world in decline, and that America was simply beginner in the game. Assuming that American decline is actually happening, what will replace her? Harold Evans reviews Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Strategic Vision:

Assuming that America is now incapable of vaulting back to global supremacy, he considers it unlikely that in the ensuring scramble, the world will be dominated by China or any other single preeminent successor. He commends both Chinese and American current policymakers for downplaying ideology while embracing a concept of “constructive partnership” in global affairs. His anxiety is whether our West, disunited and economically turbulent, can get its act together to be a balancer and conciliator between the new powers as Britain was in Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

If we could contrive a renewed and larger West—which we so signally failed to do in the 30s—he believes the U.S. can help a resurgent Asia avoid a struggle for regional domination by mediating conflicts and offsetting power balances among potential rivals. Otherwise as China grows and other emerging powers—Russia or India or Brazil—“compete with each other for resources, security, and economic advantage, the potential for miscalculation and conflict increases.”