Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
War and Change was for me the first book which provided a compelling explanation of the rise and fall of great powers over time. It is one of the most pervasive patterns in history and one of the patterns that causes the most war in history. In that sense it is a book which is foundational for the study of international diplomacy and conflict.
Tell me about your first book, War and Change by Robert Gilpin.
War and Change was for me the first book which provided a compelling explanation of the rise and fall of great powers over time. There are a lot of books that address this issue and for me Gilpin’s book offers the most straightforward and persuasive in the theory of what it is that causes powers that are at the top of the pecking order to lose, over time, their advantages and eventually be eclipsed by rising challengers.
It is one of the most pervasive patterns in history and one of the patterns that causes the most war in history. In that sense it is a book which is foundational for the study of international diplomacy and conflict.
And what does Gilpin say are the causes of the fall of these great nations?
The main theory that he offers is that modes of innovation over time move from the core to the periphery of the international system. The periphery borrows the best technology from the core and gradually it is able to surpass the core by generating better economic growth, better productivity. The economic growth ultimately leads to military power. And so his theory contrasts with, for example, the work of Paul Kennedy. In his book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers Kennedy argues that great powers fall because they spend too much on defence. However, I think that empirically Gilpin offers a better explanation of this pattern of rise and fall over time than does Kennedy.
What are some historical examples for examining these theories?
If you look at cases where countries sustain high levels of defence spending, there you do see that such expenditure cuts into economic growth – Japan in the 1930s and Nazi Germany. Israel today spends upwards of ten per cent. You have to get into the double digits to have defence spending cut into your economic performance. But, in general, a country like the United States or Great Britain at its peak wasn’t spending enough to really dampen its performance. Rather what happened is that over time the US overtook Britain due to America’s secular rise. Now it is Asia that is borrowing the best technology and emerging as the new node of innovation and production. One would expect that over the course of this century China would gradually catch up with the United States.
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Charles Kupchan is Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was Director for European Affairs on the National Security Council during the first Clinton administration. He has served as a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs, Columbia University’s Institute for War and Peace Studies, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales in Paris. During 2006-2007 he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Henry A Kissinger Scholar at the Library of Congress.
