I think it's the wrong question. I'll answer it, but it's the wrong question, because it assumes a static pie of power. Let's face it, is Parliament as powerful as it once was, or political parties?
One, we are living in a more complex society, in which power is diffused. What's a national economy? In an era where power is more diffused and there is less institutional deference to authority, it's not a surprise that this would reflect itself in global power.
Two, historically, I think the post-war period will be judged as a rather unique 40 years in which very few number of countries could pretend that they ran the world, because power wasn't as equally distributed, or at least not as equally distributed as it is today and it will become.
I'm not at all in the camp of the United States having lost influence, the United States being on decline, or the west being on decline. I'm of the view that we are seeing an alteration of global political power that will have consequence for us and the United States, etc. That shouldn't be viewed in an alarmist way or in a nostalgic recall of the past. There's so much that one could point to that is actually good. We are seeing economic growth in the developing world at a rate and in a dimension that we hadn't anticipated 15 or 20 years ago. We are seeing the growth of transparency and institution-building in a number of countries that we had talked about wishing for. Now we see it.
I think institutions will have to adapt, and global power will certainly be more diffused. That is a call for greater leadership in certain countries, of which the United States will be top on my list for seeking global leadership on global solutions.