American power preponderance and thenuclear revolution

The theory of Power Preponderance put forward by Stephen Brooks and WilliamWohlforth is poised to replace structural balance-of-power theory as the leading AmericanRealist interpretation of international politics. Power Preponderance argues that would-berivals to the US are not balancing against it because they are dissuaded from doing so bygeopolitical and structural factors, rather than because they love the US or are cowed by it.This article shows why the central analytical claim of Power Preponderance would besubstantially enhanced by incorporating the logic of the nuclear revolution, but that its mainpolicy recommendation – indefinite and magnanimous American preponderance – is underminedby the spectre of nuclear war. In the nuclear age, normative solutions to the problem ofanarchy invariably gravitate toward the logic of a world state.