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The lonely superpower

As the US is discovering, it’s not so easy to be the solo heavyweight

By Thanassis Cambanis

 |   

  January 22, 2012

Experts have taken for granted that the world, and the United States in particular, is safer since the end of the Cold War — that a unipolar world, with only one dominant power, is the most stable. But a new analysis by political scientist Nuno P. Monteiro finds just the opposite: we may well be better off with another superpower balancing US might, and that stands to change how we handle the powers currently rising abroad.

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