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Throughout most of human history, the desire - or obsession - to be �number one,� the need to improve one's status and prestige, has been ubiquitous. Though the pursuit of glory is one of the classic motivations for state behavior, it is not a major independent variable in modern models of international relations. It is not only unmeasurable and subjective but archaic and anachronistic, seemingly more appropriate to ancient Greece than the twenty-first century United States. Still, glory lingers; direct reference might today be confined to dictatorial strongmen on the fringes of the international order, but its impulses are present in every country, and especially the United States. This paper explores the continuing importance of the competition for glory in modern U.S. foreign policy. Irrespective of one's view of the value of competitiveness in other aspects of life, in matters of foreign policy it is often a selfdestructive impulse. The belief that it is important to be �the best,� the number one state in the international hierarchy in whatever category is being discussed, often leads to counterproductive policies that waste assets in pursuit of irrational goals. It is, therefore, deeply pathological. In an era when the United States may soon face challengers to its status that put its prestige in peril, it is a particularly important pathology to understand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]