According to Arrighi, we are currently witnessing the decline of the systemic cycle of accumulation dominated by the United States. The defeat suffered by the latter during the Vietnam War was the ‘signal crisis’ of this decline, the war in Iraq is its ‘terminal crisis’. Wars – combined with growing deficits, to which they contribute significantly – play an important role in the transition from one instance of hegemony to the next. For Arrighi, the power of the United States persists to this day, but it represents a typical case of ‘domination without hegemony’. The Italian thinker’s analysis is close here to that of Robert Cox. ‘Domination’ is predicated on instances of economic and military superiority that are not accompanied by the consent of the dominated. The latter endure the domination for want of an alternative, but they do not actively collaborate with it, and invariably seek to undermine it. For domination to be converted into hegemony, it is indispensable that it should rest on a mixture of interests that is clearly understood by the dominated – the dominant classes among the dominated populations must have an interest in the domination – and cultural identification. Until the 1970s, the United States combined these elements, which made it an authentic hegemon. But since the Vietnam War, and still more the war in Iraq and the failure of the ‘Project for a New American Century’, it clearly lacks them.