The Weak Superpower (or Obama & Munich, Con't)

I'm of the opinion that America's preponderance of power is a good thing. But reading this piece by Mark Helprin, I'm no longer so sure why we even bother:

When Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich at least he thought he had obtained something in return for his appeasement. The new American diplomacy is nothing more than a sentimental flood of unilateral concessions—not least, after some minor Putinesque sabre rattling, to Russia. Canceling the missile deployment within NATO, which Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian ambassador to that body, characterizes as "the Americans . . . simply correcting their own mistake, and we are not duty bound to pay someone for putting their own mistakes right," is to grant Russia a veto over sovereign defensive measures—exactly the opposite of American resolve during the Euro Missile Crisis of 1983, the last and definitive battle of the Cold War.

For the sake of argument, let's grant Helprin his premise, that the administration's recent diplomatic maneuvers are world-historical blunders. So what? The U.S. possess more power - across every measure - than either Iran or Russia combined. That was manifestly not the case with Britain vis-a-vis Germany in the run-up to the second World War. And none of the administration's endeavors - talking to Iran, not going ahead with missile defenses in Poland and the Czech, materially weakens the United States.

Really, what is the point of being a super power if a swath of our elite exist in a state of near constant panic?

UPDATE: Daniel Larison answers the question:

Not even people at the Claremont Institute can actually believe that scrapping a small set of missile interceptors that was defending against a threat that didn’t exist makes any difference to European security, much less that it can be seriously compared to Munich or even to the controversy over deployment of nuclear missiles in western Europe. It is hype designed to frighten people, to get them to stop thinking and to begin reacting viscerally and emotionally. This is done by summoning up spectres of past totalitarian threats that are long gone and by tapping into irrational feelings of national righteousness and by encouraging a belief that our government is undermining our national greatness.