Jeane Kirkpatrick and the Roots of Principled Realism

In his 2010 work, The China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic Posture in the Post-American Era, Col. Liu Mingfu laid out a plan for China to replace the United States as the “champion nation” in the 21st century. Victorious in World War II, the United States served as the architect for the last major revision of the international system, shaping each pillar — economic, thought, military, and rules — to best suit the security and prosperity of America and its allies. Presented with a bipolar world at the time, the United States shaped the four pillars within that context. When a unipolar world emerged at the end of the Cold War, the United States again adapted the pillars accordingly.