Christian privilege
The concept of hegemony describes the ways in which a dominant group, in this case mainly U.S. Protestant Christians, disseminate their "dominant" social constructions as common sense, normative, or even universal, even though most of the world's inhabitants are not Christian. Christian hegemony also accepts Christianity as part of the natural order, even at times by those who are marginalized, disempowered, or rendered invisible by it. Thus, Christian hegemony helps to maintain the marginality of other religions and beliefs. According to Beaman, "the binary opposition of sameness/difference is reflected in Protestant/minority religion in which mainstream Protestantism is representative of the 'normal'".
Offensive realism
John Mearsheimer summed up this view as follows: "great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibility of a challenge by another great power. Only a misguided state would pass up an opportunity to be the hegemon in the system because it thought it already had sufficient power to survive." Accordingly, offensive neorealists such as Mearsheimer believe that a state's best strategy to increase its relative power to the point of achieving hegemony is to rely on offensive tactics. Provided that it is rational for them to act aggressively, great powers will likely pursue expansionist policies, which will bring them closer to hegemony. Since global hegemony is nearly impossible to attain due to the constraints of power projection across oceans and retaliation forces, the best end game status states can hope to reach is that of a regional hegemon dominating its own geographical area. This relentless quest for power inherently generates a state of "constant security competition, with the possibility of war always in the background". Only once regional hegemony is attained do great powers become status quo states.