Despite the accelerated decline of America's position in the world in the intervening years, the United States remains the world's most powerful and influential nation. (Even those who measure power in terms of military strength appear more concerned about an upward trend in-Soviet military strength and a relative decline in America's strength and its willingness to use it than about current U.S. inferiority.) The position of the United States has eroded because of its own follies and the growing strength of other countries; the latter development would have occurred irrespective of U.S. actions.