Once their productive capacity [is] enhanced, countries...normally
find it easier to sustain the
burdens of paying for large-scale armaments in peacetime
and of maintaining and supplying large
armies and fleets in wartime. It sounds crudely
mercantilistic to express it this way, but wealth is
usually needed to acquire and protect wealth.
If, however, too large a portion of the state's
resources is diverted from wealth creation and allocated
instead to military purposes, then that is
likely to lead to a weakening of national power
over the longer term. In the same way, if a state
overextends itself strategically--by, say, the conquest
of extensive territories or the waging of costly
wars--it runs the risk that the potential benefits
from external expansion may be outweighed by the
great expense of it all--a dilemma which becomes
acute if the nation concerned has entered a period
of relative economic decline.
-Paul
Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Looking back it is hard at first to recall why this book stirred so
much controversy when it was published. It is Kennedy's unexceptional
thesis that Great Powers rise to a point where they are overextended because
of their imperial commitments and the expenditures needed to defend them.
This diversion of national resources to the military saps the strength
of the economy and forces an inevitable decline. When he writes as
a historian, tracing the cycles of the rise and fall of Great Powers of
the past, he makes an overwhelming case that this is so. But he stumbles
badly, and this is where the controversy arose, when he tries to apply
his theory to the United States.
Kennedy's problems come from the fact that completely misunderstood
American exceptionalism in general and the events of the Reagan years in
particular. In the first place, he failed to consider the fact that
America has historically been unwilling to intervene in the affairs of
other nations unless there is an actual or perceived threat to American
life and has been unwilling to maintain even an adequate, never mind an
enormous, military in peacetime. Second, he, like many other Liberals,
considered America to be at peace during the Cold War and, therefore, the
relatively large defense expenditures of the 1980's did appear to fit the
pattern of the other Empires. However, all that is required is a
simple shift in perspective, an understanding that the Cold War was in
fact a war and then the budgetary emphasis on armaments actually appears
pretty conservative. For instance, even after fifty years of Cold
War the National Debt today is only about 5/7ths of GDP. By comparison,
after WWII it stood at 125+%. Thanks to the threat of nuclear war
and our willingness to fight through proxy states, we managed to conduct
the Cold War on the cheap. And since the Cold War ended we have been
disarming ourselves just as fast as humanly, and politically, possible,
marking a return to normal American military inadequacy.
This same confusion led Kennedy to misapprehend American commitments
abroad. He looked at organizations like NATO and relationships with
relatively unstable governments like El Salvador, South Africa, Israel,
etc. and perceived eternal entangling alliances like those which dragged
Britain into Europe's continental wars. But, in fact, most of these
were merely marriages of convenience on our part and with the demise of
the Soviet Union it is hard to imagine us honoring most of these commitments.
In fact, we were only too happy to disown the whites of South Africa once
we no longer had to worry about the Soviets getting control of the regions
natural resources. America is returning to it's normal fairly isolationist
posture. We remain a great power because of our economic might and
our nuclear weapons, but we are in no sense an Empire, nor was there ever
any real chance that we would try to become one.
Some of Kennedy's errors may simply have been attributable to innocent
misunderstanding of the American system and to the problems inherent in
all predictive models of human affairs. However, there is also a
strong ideological influence that lead him into error. Kennedy is
a declinist; like many on the Left he feels a visceral need to portray
the West as past it's day. Younger folk, grown used to the resurgent
economic miracle that America has become, may have trouble believing that
just twenty years ago there was serious talk about the failure of the American
System. In the dark days of the 70s, democracy was thought to be
in crisis, a crisis from which it might not be capable of recovering.
The high water mark (low water mark?) of this doomsterism probably came
with Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech--here was a president of the United
States essentially wringing his hands and throwing in the towel in the
face of Soviet expansionism, skyrocketing inflation, social unrest, etc..
Given that kind of environment, it is not surprising that Left academics
would have rushed to read the West's funeral oration. Coming when
it did, their thesis struck a note of not merely decline but of defeatism--as
if the West's cause was already lost. Unfortunately for their reputations
as prognosticators and impartial historians, and happily for us, this was
merely the darkness before the dawn. As Kennedy should have understood,
decades of what was basically a continuous war footing had warped the economy,
while pusilanimousness in prosecution of the war had allowed the Soviets
to gain an illusory upper hand. As soon as Reagan took office and
committed the West to actually winning and ending the Cold War, things
started moving again and just twenty years later we find the country in
the best economic shape that any nation has ever enjoyed.
There is still a baby that we should not throw out with the rest of
this bath water; Kennedy's basic thesis is still valuable and provides
the basis for a compelling argument that we should not have become involved
in the Cold War in the first place. The Soviets would have quickly
become overextended trying to administer all of Europe and would have tipped
into an even more rapid decline than they eventually sank into. We
could have retreated into Fortress America, balanced our budgets and gone
along our merry way. For that matter, this is one of the arguments
that American isolationists made about WWII and it was equally valid then.
But Kennedy's book was not merely intended to be history; it was partially
polemical, his purpose to portray an America in decline and to cast doubt
upon the Reagan presidency and the renewed commitment to victory in the
Cold War. The happy fact that Kennedy's political goals were swamped
by events and his warnings sound ludicrous now, should not obscure the
important message of the rest of the book. The lesson it teaches
is that vast international commitments, and the military expenditures they
require, are detrimental to a nation's economic health. The corrective
that the Reagan/Bush/Clinton years offer is that it's okay to get drawn
into War, provided that you seek to win it and return the nation to it's
normal peacetime isolation and military unpreparedness afterwards.
(Reviewed:31-May-00)
Grade: (C+)
Websites:
Paul Kennedy Links:
-ESSAY: Old Europe Cannot Be a Counterweight to the American Imperium (Paul Kennedy, Summer 2003, New Perspectives Quarterly)
-ESSAY: The Perils Of Empire: This Looks Like America's Moment. History Should Give Us Pause (Paul Kennedy, April 20, 2003, Washington Post)
Book-related and General Links:
-BIO:
Professor Paul Kennedy (Yale)
-BOOKNOTES:
Author: Paul Kennedy Title: Preparing for the Twenty-First Century
(CSPAN)
-ESSAY:
Must It Be the Rest Against the West?: Absent major changes in North-South
relations, the wretched should inherit the earth by about 2025 (Matthew
Connelly and Paul Kennedy, Atlantic Monthly, December 1994)
-REVIEW
: of STRANGE VICTORY Hitler's Conquest of France By Ernest R. May
Piercing the Fog of War (PAUL KENNEDY, LA Times)
-REVIEW
: of Troublemaker : The Liufe and History of A.J. P. Taylor by Kathleen
Burk (Paul Kennedy, Atlantic Monthly)
-REVIEW:
of Twentieth Century The History of the World, 1901 to 2000. By J. M. Roberts
(Paul Kennedy, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE SECOND WORLD WAR By John Keegan (Paul Kennedy, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE RISE OF THE TRADING STATE Commerce and Conquest in the Modern
World. By Richard Rosecrance (Paul Kennedy, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of TWENTIETH-CENTURY WARRIORS The Development of the Armed Forces of
the Major Military Nations in the Twentieth Century. By Field Marshal Lord
Carver (Paul Kennedy, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of BEYOND AMERICAN HEGEMONY The Future of the Western Alliance.
By David P. Calleo (Paul Kennedy, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of GEORGE C. MARSHALL Statesman 1945-1959. By Forrest C. Pogue (Paul
Kennedy, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE MIDDLE EAST 1945-1951 Arab Nationalism,
the United States, and Postwar Imperialism. By Wm. Roger Louis (Paul Kennedy,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of PASSAGE EAST Illustrated and written by Ian Marshall (Paul Kennedy,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE HUNDRED DAYS By Patrick O'Brian (Paul Kennedy, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE FATEFUL ALLIANCE France, Russia, and the Coming of the First
World War. By George F. Kennan (Paul Kennedy, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Paul Kennedy: In the Shadow of the Great War, NY Review of Books
The First World War by John Keegan
The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson
-REVIEW:
Paul Kennedy: Doomsterism, NY Review of Books
The Ends of the Earth: A Journey
at the Dawn of the 21st Century by Robert D. Kaplan
-REVIEW:
Paul Kennedy: Fin-de-Siècle America, NY Review of Books
The Myth of America's Decline:
Leading the World Economy into the 1990s by Henry R. Nau
America's Economic Resurgence:
A Bold New Strategy by Richard Rosecrance
Peril and Promise: A Commentary
on America by John Chancellor
Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature
of American Power by Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
-REVIEW:
Paul Kennedy: Can the US Remain Number One?, NY Review of Books
The Weary Titan: Britain and the
Experience of Relative Decline, 1895-1905 by Aaron L. Friedberg
The Future of American Strategy
by David C. Hendrickson
Thinking About America: The United
States in the 1990s
Preventing World War III: A Realistic
Grand Strategy by David M. Abshire
-REVIEW:
Paul Kennedy: The Reasons Why, NY Review of Books
The Origins of the First World
War by James Joll
-REVIEW:
Paul Kennedy: Not So Grand Strategy, NY Review of Books
Discriminate Deterrence: Report
of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy
-ESSAY:
Paul Kennedy: Preparing for the 21st Century: Winners and Losers, NY
Review of Books
-ESSAY:
Paul Kennedy: The American Prospect, NY Review of Books
-INTERVIEW:
CONNECTICUT Q&A: PAUL KENNEDY; 'The Phone Rings All the Time' (DENNIS
HEVESI, NY Times)
-PROFILE:
TAKING STOCK: IS AMERICA IN DECLINE? (Peter Schmeisser, NY Times)
-ARTICLE:
IDEAS & TRENDS; The Ascent of Books on Decline of U.S. (NICHOLAS
WADE, NY Times)
-ESSAY:
False prophets Professor of the past gets Asia's future wrong (Next
City)
-ESSAY:
AMERICA RULES: THANK GOD WHO ELSE SHOULD CALL THE SHOTS? CHINA? IRAN?
THE RUSSIAN MAFIA? (CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER)
-ESSAY:
Bird's Eye: Why China Doesn't Scare Me (Karl Zinsmeister,
American Enterprise Institute)
-REVIEW:
of THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GREAT POWERS: Economic Change and Military
Conflict From 1500 to 2000. By Paul Kennedy (Michael Howard, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW:
James Joll: The Cost of Bigness, NY Review of Books
The Rise and Fall of the Great
Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 by Paul
Kennedy
-REVIEW:
of THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GREAT POWERS. Economic Change and Military
Conflict from 1500 to 2000. By Paul Kennedy ( Christopher Lehmann-Haupt,
NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of PREPARING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY By Paul Kennedy (Robert Heilbroner,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of Preparing for the 21st Century By Paul Kennedy ( Christopher
Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
Alan Ryan: Twenty-first Century Blues, NY Review of Books
Preparing for the Twenty-first
Century by Paul Kennedy
-REVIEW:
Modern Malthusianism: Book Review of "Preparing for the Twenty-First
Century" by Paul Kennedy (Jesse Alan Gordon)
GENERAL:
-ESSAY:
WHO RULES NEXT?: Where America stands among world empires (Brad Knickerbocker,
The Christian Science Monitor)
-ESSAY:
What to Do With American Primacy (Richard N. Haass, Foreign
Affairs, September/October 1999)
-ESSAY:
BOOKS & BUSINESS; PRIMERS FOR PRESIDENTS (Robert Kuttner, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of BOUND TO LEAD The Changing Nature of American Power. By Joseph S. Nye
Jr (Michael Beschloss, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
BARBARIAN SENTIMENTS How the American Century Ends. By William Pfaff
(Alan Tonelson, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of The Idea of Decline in Western History By Arthur Herman (Fareed
Zakaria, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's
World Role (Anders Stephanson, Boundary)
-REVIEW:
of AMERICA'S ECONOMIC RESURGENCE A Bold New Strategy. By Richard Rosecrance
(Robert Kuttner, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE COMING AMERICAN RENAISSANCE How to Benefit From America's Economic
Resurgence By Michael Moynihan ( Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
Benjamin M. Friedman: The Power of the Electronic Herd, NY Review of
Books
The Lexus and the Olive Tree by
Thomas L. Friedman
-REVIEW:
Nicholas Lemann: Mysteries of the Middle Class, NY Review of Books
Declining Fortunes: The Withering
of the American Dream by Katherine S. Newman
Silent Depression: The Fate of
the American Dream by Wallace G. Peterson
The Way We Never Were: American
Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz
The Good Society by Robert Bellah,
Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton
Rising in the West: The True Story
of an 'Okie' Family from the Great Depression Through the Reagan Years
by Dan Morgan
-REVIEW:
Robert M. Solow: Blame the Foreigner, NY Review of Books
The Endangered American Dream:
How to Stop the United States from Becoming a Third World Country and How
to Win the Geo-Economic Struggle for Industrial Supremacy by Edward N.
Luttwak
-REVIEW:
James Fallows: The Romance with Mexico, NY Review of Books
The New North American Order:
A Win-Win Strategy for US-Mexico Trade by Clyde V. Prestowitz, Jr., Robert
B. Cohen, with Peter A. Morici, and Alan Tonelson
The Low-Wage Challenge to Global
Growth: The Labor Cost-Productivity Imbalance in Newly Industrialized Countries
by
Walter Russell Mead
US Jobs and the Mexico Trade Proposal
by Jeff Faux and William Spriggs
Fast Track, Fast Shuffle by Jeff
Faux and Richard Rothstein
The End of Laissez-Faire: National
Purpose and the Global Economy after the Cold War by Robert Kuttner
-REVIEW:
Noel Annan: Can Conservatism Work?, NY Review of Books (1983)
The Squandered Peace: The World,
1945-1975 by John Vaizey
Modern Times: The World from the
Twenties to the Eighties by Paul Johnson
The British Political Tradition,
Vol. I: The Rise of Collectivism by W.H. Greenleaf
The British Political Tradition,
Vol. II: The Ideological Heritage by W.H. Greenleaf
-REVIEW:
Garry Wills: A Reader's Guide to the Century, NY Review of Books
BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS ARTICLE
The Age of Extremes: A History
of the World, 1914-1991 by Eric Hobsbawm
Modern Times, Modern Places by
Peter Conrad
A History of the World in the
Twentieth Century by J.A.S. Grenville
The Century by Peter Jennings
and Todd Brewster
The American Century by Harold
Evans, with Gail Buckland, and Kevin Baker
The Oxford History of the Twentieth
Century edited by Michael Howard
The Columbia History of the Twentieth
Century edited by Richard W. Bulliet
Why the American Century? by Olivier
Zunz
The Twentieth Century: A World
History by Clive Ponting
Our Times: The Illustrated History
of the 20th Century edited by Lorraine Glennon
Chronicle of the 20th Century
edited by Clifton Daniel, John W. Kirshon
National Geographic Eyewitness
to the 20th Century by National Geographic Society
-ESSAY:
World State Formation: Historical Processes and Emergent Necessity
(Christopher Chase-Dunn, The Johns Hopkins University)
-ESSAY:
Do We Consume Too Much?: Discussions of the future of the
planet are dominated by those who believe that an expanding world economy
will use up natural resources and those who see no reasons, environmental
or otherwise, to limit economic growth. Neither side has it right (Mark
Sagoff, Atlantic Monthly)
-ESSAY:
Guess who hates America? Conservatives. Fall Guys (LAWRENCE F.
KAPLAN, New Republic)
-ESSAY:
Do Conservatives Really Hate America? The New Republic's diagnosis
of the foreign-policy elite (Mike Potemra, National Review)
-INTERNET
MODERN HISTORY SOURCEBOOK: America as World Leader: Internal Change
-LINKS:
Archives on America & Decline
Comments:
Orrin welcomes reader comments on his reviews.
Add yours here.
China provides us cheap labor and then buys bonds to help with our very modest debt.
- oj
- Jun-24-2004, 20:00
*******************************************************
I have to agree with Mijnheer Rijnders as this review needs to be overhauled. What the judds failed to anticipate in their 2000 review was how far away from Bush's campaign promises of "no nation building" (or destroying), "being humble" in foreign relations, and being fiscally conservative ("balanced budget") he would drag the USA in the reality of his rule.
Kenneddy's theories were based not on projections but on historic analyses and it does look with increasingly supportive evidence that hsi analyses were correct.
China, unrestricted in its growth and budgeting heavily on the education of engineers and hi-tech specialties is taking such jobs away by the 1000s from Americans every month. What will be left will be the low-paying, no health insurance service variety which will drive US tax bases down to the bottom end of it's limits and may see the next admin or one thereafter starting public works projects like FDR's New Deal TVA to stem the red ink on the US budget deficit growth.
what comes after that? read Kennedy!
- AE Mohr
- Jun-24-2004, 15:05
*******************************************************
Just finished the book. I agree that Kennedy did not completely contemplate what would happen once the U.S. won the cold war and it is a shame that he didn’t wait a few more years to publish the book. However, his general observations on 1) nations' need to balance economic growth with defense spending and recapitalization, and 2) China do have merit. Kennedy stated quite clearly, in the chapter on the 21st century, that it was dangerous for a historian to make predictions, and - as you can see from the article and other comments – he was correct.
- BB
- Jan-08-2004, 06:39
*******************************************************
Were it not for 9-11, radical Islamicism/pan-Arabism, and the fact that our defense budget in 2001 was half what it had been during the Cold War I'd be inclined to admit you're right. But since those are all facts, I fear you're quite wrong.
- OJ
- Mar-31-2003, 08:23
*******************************************************
Considering the first argument in this review, that Paul Kennedy "failed to consider the fact that America has historically been unwilling to intervene in the affairs of other nations unless there is an actual or perceived threat to American life and has been unwilling to maintain even an adequate, never mind an enormous, military in peacetime", I believe that the Iraqi war has proven wrong this line of thought. I believe Paul Kennedy was more of a visionary than the reviewer could imagine.
- Wim Rijnders
- Mar-31-2003, 07:59
*******************************************************
