[<nowiki/>American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy … - Zbigniew Brzezinski

Benchmarks are targets that have to be fulfilled. They cannot be fulfilled in an indefinite period of time, so there are timetables in benchmarks.

In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term: preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.

It is conceivable that at some point a truly united and powerful European Union could become a global political rival to the United States.