But on the middle board of economic relations, the world is already multipolar, and the US cannot obtain the outcomes it wants without the cooperation of Europe, Japan, China, and others. And, on the bottom board of transnational issues outside the control of governments – including everything from climate change to pandemics to transnational terrorism – power is chaotically distributed, and it makes no sense at all to claim American hegemony.
我把当今政治实力的分配比作一盘三维国际象棋。在上盘—国家之间的军事关系中—世界确实是单极化的，而且这种情况很可能还要持续几十年。但在中盘的经济关系方面，世界已经是多极化了，而美国也不可能不通过与欧洲、日本、中国和其它国家合作就获得自己需要的结果。在下盘超越政府控制之外的跨国事务方面—包括从气候变化到流行疾病到跨国恐怖主义—实力的分配是混乱的，因而在这样的背景下提出美国的霸权也是毫无意义的。