What is the Point of the Ikenberry-Acharya Debate?

Since the outbreak of the Great Recession triggered by the Lehman shock in 2008, writings on American decline have proliferated. World-renowned scholars and commentators have all pointed out that the American hegemony or empire is rapidly coming to an end, and that as a consequence the world is in greater turmoil than ever (for example, Zakaria, 2008; Friedman and Mandelbaum, 2011; Kupchan, 2012; Bremmer, 2012). Although there are differences among various works, most commentators predict a bleak prospect for the future.