THE RISE AND RISE OF THE ONLY GREAT POWER :

Perpetual War Poses a Risk to US Power (Daniel Warner, June 28, 2002, International Herald Tribune)

The United States is at war. This has been repeated by President George W. Bush and members of his administration on several occasions. What has not been made clear is the nature of the war. There has been no formal declaration that clearly sets out goals and objectives.

Why is this so worrying? In 1987, the Yale University historian Paul Kennedy described the rise and fall of empires. He analyzed how all imperial powers arrived at a point of overreach that eventually destroyed the empire. Too much concern for security and disproportionate spending on defense were endemic to the fall of all previous empires he studied. The United States appears at this time to be marching into a situation that fits Kennedy's description of imperial decline.

Mr. Kennedy had the great misfortune to publish his book even as Ronald Reagan and the United States were winning the Cold War and alleviating the economic stresses he warned of. We immediately began shredding the military, as we always do between wars, and soon his concerns appeared to have been the product of a fevered imagination. This is unfortunate because he was largely right--the long term pursuit of extensive imperial policies and the military spending required for such actions do seem to have a catastrophic effect on economies, ultimately contributing to the disintegration of said empires.

But Mr. Warner's warning about the current crisis seems a tad overblown. There's no reason to believe that our current war against radical Islam will require anything like the spending levels of World Wars II and III, nor does the conflict seem likely to last for more than a few years. Most important to keep in mind is that unlike the Cold War where the balance of terror restrained the U.S. from using much of its military superiority, there are no similar restraints now. Should the war become too burdensome or should it begin to go poorly, one would anticipate that we'd just trot out our nuclear capability and put an end to it on our own--very ugly, but reasonably cost effective--terms.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 30, 2002 8:27 PM