reardenstone
03-04-2010, 10:04 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/kennedy-powers.html?_r=2
(1988)
He expands his thesis in the introduction and epilogue. It can be easily summarized: The more states increase their power, the larger the proportion of their resources they devote to maintaining it. If too large a proportion of national resources is diverted to military purposes, this in the long run leads to a weakening of power. The capacity to sustain a conflict with a comparable state or coalition of states ultimately depends on economic strength; but states apparently at the zenith of their political power are usually already in a condition of comparative economic decline, and the United States is no exception to this rule. Power can be maintained only by a prudent balance between the creation of wealth and military expenditure, and great powers in decline almost always hasten their demise by shifting expenditure from the former to the latter. Spain, the Netherlands, France and Britain did exactly that. Now it is the turn of the Soviet Union and the United States.
More great stuff really relevant to today's discussions:
Unlike Toynbee or Spengler, Mr. Kennedy does not conclude that the West is doomed to cyclical decay. Indeed at one level his whole work is a paean for the free-market competitive system which produced not only the armaments but the enterprise that the United States inherited in such abundant measure from a Europe that had used it to overwhelm more sluggish empires and conquer the world. What the United States needs, he concludes, is the wisdom to recognize its problem, the will to come to terms with it, and the kind of political skills that in the past have enabled lesser powers to maximize their advantages and minimize their defects.
He is not, it must be said, optimistic about the capacity of the American political system over the long term to engender such virtues in its leaders. The thought indeed obtrudes itself, in the aftermath of the Washington summit, that if the Soviet leadership were to prove better able to develop such qualities and operate more skillfully in an increasingly multipolar world, the outlook for the United States would be bleak. No amount of defense expenditure could then save it from the consequences of that unhappy isolation into which so many great powers have found themselves driven in the past and from which they have emerged, chastened and defeated, as second- or third-rank powers. There are lessons to be learned from the past at a profounder level than those of Munich or Sarajevo, and the American leadership would do well to heed them. NOT BY BATTLE ALONE
Anyone read this? It haven't but I will in short order. It was featured Tuesday on "Newshour" with Jim Lehrer. If anyone can find the recast video, please post it here.
Should this be something we embrace and call for more of? Can we get Jim and crew to start listening to Ron Paul and tie him in to scholars like Paul Kennedy and Howard Zinn?
(1988)
He expands his thesis in the introduction and epilogue. It can be easily summarized: The more states increase their power, the larger the proportion of their resources they devote to maintaining it. If too large a proportion of national resources is diverted to military purposes, this in the long run leads to a weakening of power. The capacity to sustain a conflict with a comparable state or coalition of states ultimately depends on economic strength; but states apparently at the zenith of their political power are usually already in a condition of comparative economic decline, and the United States is no exception to this rule. Power can be maintained only by a prudent balance between the creation of wealth and military expenditure, and great powers in decline almost always hasten their demise by shifting expenditure from the former to the latter. Spain, the Netherlands, France and Britain did exactly that. Now it is the turn of the Soviet Union and the United States.
More great stuff really relevant to today's discussions:
Unlike Toynbee or Spengler, Mr. Kennedy does not conclude that the West is doomed to cyclical decay. Indeed at one level his whole work is a paean for the free-market competitive system which produced not only the armaments but the enterprise that the United States inherited in such abundant measure from a Europe that had used it to overwhelm more sluggish empires and conquer the world. What the United States needs, he concludes, is the wisdom to recognize its problem, the will to come to terms with it, and the kind of political skills that in the past have enabled lesser powers to maximize their advantages and minimize their defects.
He is not, it must be said, optimistic about the capacity of the American political system over the long term to engender such virtues in its leaders. The thought indeed obtrudes itself, in the aftermath of the Washington summit, that if the Soviet leadership were to prove better able to develop such qualities and operate more skillfully in an increasingly multipolar world, the outlook for the United States would be bleak. No amount of defense expenditure could then save it from the consequences of that unhappy isolation into which so many great powers have found themselves driven in the past and from which they have emerged, chastened and defeated, as second- or third-rank powers. There are lessons to be learned from the past at a profounder level than those of Munich or Sarajevo, and the American leadership would do well to heed them. NOT BY BATTLE ALONE
Anyone read this? It haven't but I will in short order. It was featured Tuesday on "Newshour" with Jim Lehrer. If anyone can find the recast video, please post it here.
Should this be something we embrace and call for more of? Can we get Jim and crew to start listening to Ron Paul and tie him in to scholars like Paul Kennedy and Howard Zinn?