Newsweek takes on the end of American dominance. Is it a good thing?

The post-American world is naturally an unsettling prospect for Americans, but it should not be. This will not be a world defined by the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else. It is the result of a series of positive trends that have been progressing over the last 20 years, trends that have created an international climate of unprecedented peace and prosperity.

I know. That's not the world that people perceive. We are told that we live in dark, dangerous times. Terrorism, rogue states, nuclear proliferation, financial panics, recession, outsourcing, and illegal immigrants all loom large in the national discourse. Al Qaeda, Iran, North Korea, China, Russia are all threats in some way or another. But just how violent is today's world, really?

A team of scholars at the University of Maryland has been tracking deaths caused by organized violence. Their data show that wars of all kinds have been declining since the mid-1980s and that we are now at the lowest levels of global violence since the 1950s. Deaths from terrorism are reported to have risen in recent years. But on closer examination, 80 percent of those casualties come from Afghanistan and Iraq, which are really war zones with ongoing insurgencies—and the overall numbers remain small. Looking at the evidence, Harvard's polymath professor Steven Pinker has ventured to speculate that we are probably living "in the most peaceful time of our species' existence."

Personally I do not think of this as a bad thing. How much money might America save if they did not feel they needed to police the world? How many of our resources could be turned toward needs not being met in this country?

I mean we will still reach out to our neighbors but we do not always have to be running the show.

I am not arrogant enough to believe that America's way is always the best way. And lately there is a strong argument to be made that America has mismanaged its responsibilities and misused it influence.

Being stripped of power may be a very good thing for America. Britain, Italy, and France all survived it intact. So can we.