The Peril of Too Much Power
The fundamental problem is that America today has too much power for anyone's good, including its own. It has that matchless, global soft power in all of our heads. In economic power its only rival is the European Union. In military power it has no rival. Its military expenditure is greater than that of the next eight largest military powers combined. Not since Rome has a single power enjoyed such superiority — but the Roman colossus only bestrode one part of the world. Stripped of its anti-American overtones, the French foreign minister Hubert Védrine's term "hyperpower" is apt.

Contrary to what many Europeans think, the problem with American power is not that it is American. The problem is simply the power. It would be dangerous even for an archangel to wield so much power. The writers of the American Constitution wisely determined that no single locus of power, however benign, should predominate; for even the best could be led into temptation. Every power should therefore be checked by at least one other. That also applies in world politics.

Of course it helps that such power is exercised by leaders under the scrutiny of a developed and self-critical democracy. But even democracy brings its own temptations when it exists in a hyperpower. That temptation is illustrated by the Bush administration's recent imposition of unjustified tariffs on steel imports, threatening the international framework of free trade in order to win votes in steel-producing states.

And when a nation has so much power, what it doesn't do is as fateful as what it does.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/09/opinion/09GART.html