One day historians may see our ongoing efforts to end piracy off the Horn of Africa as marking the beginning of the end of Pax Americana, at least according to the always interesting J. E. Dyer, a retired naval intelligence officer.  “Without any particular notice being paid by Americans or Europeans,” she writes in her new blog, “we are seeing develop, in the waters off Somalia, a most informative kind of evidence that we are no longer the hyperpower we were fifteen years ago: the arrival of navy after navy to operate in support of UN resolutions, but independently of official leadership by the US, according to multiple national agendas.”

There are some who think the United States, by not acting, hoped other nations would get involved in what Dyer calls an “anti-piracy gaggle,” the “biggest naval free-for-all in modern history.”  If that was our strategy, we have invited troublemakers — like Russia, China, and even Iran — into those troubled waters.

And in so doing we have intentionally abandoned our responsibility as the guarantor of the sea lanes and legitimized the role of our adversaries.  In short, we have not only marginalized ourselves, but we have also boosted the worst states in the world today.  This is not how the United States maintained order last century.

As Yale’s Paul Kennedy has written, some nations fail after “imperial overstretch.”  In our case, it looks as if Dyer may be right and we will fade away after empowering those who wish us harm.  We will not, as we hope, make autocrats responsible members of the international community by giving them a role in maintaining order.  We will just make them better able to accomplish their aims.