STOCKHOLM, June 17: The United States’ ambition to do what it takes to remain the world’s only superpower is at least as unsettling for its friends as for its potential foes, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said on Tuesday.

The end of the Cold War has seen the emergence of a system governed by power play, and pessimists see Washington’s policy of creating a unilateral world as contributing to overall instability, it said in its 2002 annual report.

“The decision of the USA to defend its eminence as sole superpower by actively seeking out, striking and, if necessary, anticipating those who would threaten it has dominated global security perceptions for the past 18 months,” SIPRI director Alyson Bailes said in the report.

“Concerns about how much further the USA will go in this direction are felt by friends at least as much as foes,” she said.

The European Union, friendly towards Washington but also a natural counterweight, is hampered by its lack of progress on security issues even as its integration deepens.

“Europe lacks a coherent, collective response to the US-defined ‘new threats’ and a sense of its own global mission,” Bailes said, describing European coping strategies with Washington’s policies as “a mix of band-wagoning, role division, efforts to create a counterpole, and hopes that the US storm will blow over”.

Washington’s explicit goal of preserving US supremacy, as laid out in strategy documents in 2002, led to military action in Afghanistan, the acquisition of bases and military partners in new regions and an ambitious homeland security programme.

But SIPRI warned of the risks of the American approach of “conflating might and right”, saying that this is a safe strategy only for a state “that can be sure of its current supremacy in all dimensions and of keeping that supremacy indefinitely”.

Combined with the Bush administration’s assertive policy towards Iraq in 2002, this new approach strained relations with Europe as the US administration’s emphasis on the “coalitions of the willing” raised fears of its breaking away from alliances and legal constraints, SIPRI said.

American thinkers, meanwhile, derided “Europe’s inability either to wield power or understand it”, further adding to the tensions between the allies, SIPRI said.

“The debate about whether the USA can be expected to act as an absolutist and unilateralist, or a lawful and cooperative hegemon is one that agitates the USA’s friends much more than its potential foes,” it said.

Washington’s new assertiveness has also extended into the arena of international law, where the United States strongly opposed the International Criminal Court (ICC) and took several steps to dilute its effectiveness and shield its citizens from its jurisdiction.

“In the post-11 September 2001 context, and by virtue of its superpower status, the USA sees itself as particularly vulnerable to politically motivated prosecutions,” SIPRI said.

GREATER INSECURITY: The study said the number of armed conflicts worldwide fell last year for the first time since 1998, but the global sense of insecurity rose as terrorism posed a growing threat.