The question of whether another state would rise to challenge US hegemony became relevant in the l990s after the implosion of the Soviet Union left the United States with seemingly unprecedented might. It became even more pressing after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, as the second Bush administration aspired to a military preponderance that could not be matched by any combination of competitors. “Realist” theorists and commentators intoned that in a world of sovereign nation-states, such an asymmetry would necessarily be intolerable to all non-hegemonic states. As a result, a search for a new equilibrium would emerge, either spontaneously as middle sized countries acted collectively to contain the new gorilla on the block, or by dint of painful institutional learning and construction by far-sighted statesmen. Although it is still unclear which, if either, of these outcomes will emerge, the balance of power mantra continues to be the dominant framework for understanding global dynamics: it is the ideology of foreign policy as scripted, in effect, by Clint Eastwood.

But I believe the very premise of this debate reflects a view of world politics that is rapidly becoming obsolete. Indeed, the notion of a balance of power, no matter how tough-minded and realistic it may seem, will come to make much less sense for mid-21st century international politics. The important issue will not be whether some international association such as the European Union or some new powerful contender such as China will rise to constrain current US dominance. The issue will be whether states, or associations of states, will be effective international actors in the face of such forces as religious militance, mass migration, nuclear proliferation, global warming, and the new economic inequalities emerging from market-driven globalization.

I am not claiming that these tendencies cannot be mitigated with intelligent policies. Nor do I argue that we will not move beyond international confrontations that are dangerous in a traditional sense, such as those presented by North Korea, Iran, the future of Taiwan, or even the potential recklessness of US interventionism. In his outspoken address to international delegates in Munich this February, President Putin issued a denunciation of US intervention that sounded like an old-style call for a containment coalition—this time geared toward restraining Washington.

Indeed, many of his criticisms were perfectly justified, especially with respect to the United States’ hardly veiled ambitions for enhanced missile defense and weapons in space. But for now, Russia is in no position to lead such a coalition. Its concern about awakening Islamic separatism within its own Muslim territories precludes an easy rallying of Iran and Middle Eastern states. Moscow remains anxious in its own right about Iranian nuclear ambitions. And its ham-handed control of oil does not make it easy for the Kremlin to wean Germany and other European states away from their longstanding NATO commitments. Unipolar dominance, as Putin implies, is an abnormal historical condition. It will change—but not due to the emergence of a traditionally conceived coalition designed to contain the United States. What is more, Putin’s mindset seems itself anachronistic. Unless Washington rekindles a dangerous and reckless arms race, balance of power responses will be overshadowed by more ubiquitous perils that have little to do with an equilibrium among states. Indeed, the entire notion of power as possessed by nation-states is evaporating beneath our feet. To understand this deliquescence, we must briefly recall all the arenas in which power is exercised—not just the international sphere.

Identifying Sites of Power

Let us reflect for a moment on the idea of power, not merely as a parameter of international relations, not merely as “hard” or “soft,” but as a resource for organizing collective life. Power is one actor’s capacity to compel another actor to change his or her behavior if mere persuasiveness or influence—what Joseph Nye has christened “soft power”—does not suffice. If resistance is encountered, then “hard power” must be applied. Hard power inheres in national legislation as well as in military capacity, but at all levels it tends to be succesful only when accepted as legitimate or in the service of generally accepted norms.

A great deal of the world suffers not from too much of this power, but from too little of it. More precisely, much of the world suffers from a lack of legitimate power—that is, authority that is accepted because it rests on generally recognized norms and laws—and too much pure force. Sometimes the force is physical and raw, as when tribal groups clash in Afghanistan or Somalia, or when governments decide to suppress real or imagined enemy groups. Sometimes force is manifested in long-term civil wars, as in Central America, Colombia, and Sri Lanka. Sometimes it is exerted by rival militias, as in today’s Iraq, and sometimes it is used by criminal networks, as in the case of the Mafia. In each of these situations, the struggle is to organize power in order to hold violence in check. This holds true not only for inter-territorial conflicts, but for conflicts within territorial spaces as well. In the decades ahead, these kinds of struggles will overshadow the traditional international balance of power dynamic.

There are, moreover, other arenas for contestations of power, which we might think of as infrapolitical—the family realm, the spiritual realm, and the economic realm. Often we discuss these spheres of social life as if they were devoid of power. But if we think of power as a form of potential constraint designed to ensure desired collective behavior—whether through enthusiasm, obedience, or labor—then most people experience power within non-state institutions, whether these be families, religious communities, or economic structures. Indeed, to most people in the world, the power exerted through families and markets is far more pressing and immediate than power exerted between or within states. Just as physicists postulate dark matter to explain the full strength of gravitation in the universe, we might term this often overlooked capacity to compel outcomes as “dark power.”

I will do no more than cite power within families—parents over children, husbands in many traditional nations over wives, and so on—as one domain. Unless it becomes abusive, we interpret the very real power exerted by parents over children as a form of nurture. Nonetheless it is often very real. In premodern times adolescent children were turned over to long and sometimes harsh apprenticeships. Today children are often sent to inappropriate schools; in many societies adolescent girls can be assigned husbands by parents and are subject to codes of honor enforced by shaming, isolation, and even physical intimidation. In such ways there is a large amount of “dark power” that exists within household dynamics. The other sources of dark power exist within religious and economic institutions.