Is America in decline? Should the United States continue to play the role of global leader, or focus its energies on solving its own problems? In The World America Made, Robert Kagan paints a vivid, alarming picture of what the world would look like if America were to truly decline in influence. Kagan foresees the return of competition between established great powers and even war between such rising powers as China and India; the decline of democracy around the world as Putin's Russia and authoritarian China gain more clout; and the decline of the global free market economy, which the United States created and has supported for over sixty years. As Kagan notes, we've seen it before, in the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the European order in World War I, and he warns that America need not and dare not decline by committing preemptive superpower suicide. Robert Kagan, the New York Times bestselling author of Of Paradise and Power and one of the country's most influential strategic thinkers, reaffirms the importance of United States's global leadership in this timely and important book. Upon its initial publication, The World America Made became one of the most talked about political books of the year, influencing Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union address and shaping the thought of both the Obama and Romney presidential campaigns. In these incisive and engaging pages, Kagan responds to those who anticipate-or even long for-a post-American world order by showing what a decline in America's influence would truly mean for the United States and the rest of the world, as the vital institutions, economies, and ideals currently supported by American power wane or disappear. As Kagan notes, it has happened before- one need only to consider the consequences of the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the European order in World War I. This book is a powerful warning that America need not and dare not decline by committing preemptive superpower suicide.