The Twilight's Last Gleaming

THIS year's celebrity-in-tweed has emerged in the unlikely shape of Paul Kennedy, a Yale history professor, who is likely to supplant Alan Bloom as superstar critic-at-large.

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

By Paul Kennedy

Random House

$24.95 677 pp.

The nation's reading public has greedily bought up books inducing mass guilt trips. First came Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind" to tell us that our society was a superficial, commercialized "pre-packaged masturbational fantasy." Now Kennedy's much-awaited book has arrived, with its predictions of America's fall from its place as the world's greatest power.

(Incidentally, the anticipation which has arisen for The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers is due in large part to a little media blitzing by Kennedy, who has written opinion pieces summarizing his book for The Atlantic, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and many other major newspapers).

In a book of almost unbounded scope, Kennedy follows the sweep of diplomatic-military history from the dynastic struggles of 16th century Europe to the superpower competition of today. Kennedy's tale of the rise and fall of Great Powers is an uncontroversial one which relies heavily on other historians' interpretations. But Kennedy has created a broad synthetical framework to establish the "dynamic of change" involving military strength and economic capacity in world politics. While this link has been written on extensively by numerous scholars, The Rise and Fall is already an influential new book simply because it forcefully documents the importance of this dynamic over the last 400 years.

As a result, this book is a singularly impressive work of history. In fact, it has already appeared on at least one syllabus for a diplomatic history course at Harvard (irrelevant though that may be.) However The Rise and Fall was not written for the perusal of bearded professors in dusty carols, but for policymakers, specifically those in Washington. In a crucial time for United States foreign policy, Kennedy's book provides powerful advice for leaders wondering what to do about an American power which seems to be less and less effective and more and more expensive.

Simply put, Kennedy's thesis is this: As nations gain in military power, they must devote an increasing share of their resources to maintain that power. If this share becomes too large, the country's economy will suffer, leading to a decline in national strength and ultimately international influence. A proper balance must be maintained between "wealth creation" and the military, and great powers often quicken their fall by maintaining their military strength at the expense of their economies.

KENNEDY immediately sets out to prove his thesis by plunging into the dynastic struggles of the Habsburgs in 17th century Europe. Spain, thanks to her veteran infantry and American gold, tried to achieve European hegemony, but failed when she could not organize her resources successfully. Next came France's turn as the world's greatest power, but her economy could not support the expensive wars of Louis XIV and later Napoleon. England then assumed control, capturing a vast commercial empire through industrialization and a superior navy.

England fell into decline in the late 19th century as her industry lost the battle against the rising economies of Germany and the United States. Germany attempted to take Britain's place in two bloody wars, but could not surmount the strength of the twin superpowers--the United States and the Soviet Union.

Now, Kennedy would have us believe, a similar fate is in store for the United States. As the second half of the 20th century dawned, the United States found herself unchallenged as the most powerful country in the world and, indeed, in history. But Japan and Europe have rehabilitated themselves and are now eroding American economic strength, while the United States has expanded its overseas commitments and wasted its resources in fruitless wars. The senselessly gargantuan Pentagon budgets of the 1980s are testament to America's desparate attempt to maintain a hegemony that can no longer exist.

KENNEDY'S work is impressively subtitled "Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000." He does okay for the first four centuries. The last two hundred pages, devoted to "the strategies and economics of today and tomorrow," predict the eventual rise of Japan to great power status and the United States' abdication of its dominant position. It is here that Kennedy commits a historian's most dreadful crime: trying to predict the future from the past. In fact, it leads one to wonder whether Kennedy has not interpreted the past in light of his understanding of the present. Current worries about the critical gap between American commitments overseas and her declining resources may have led Kennedy to overlook important factors in his interpretation of the great powers.

In the case of Habsburg Spain, Kennedy's own telling of the story makes it clear that what doomed Philip II and his successors was not economic decline but the failure to organize the empire properly. Similarly, Argentina, Brazil, India and China today possess enormous resources, but none are great powers. Kennedy fails to examine the factors that weld a people together, a prerequisite to great power status: nationalism, idealism, education, and a stable political system.

Moreover, Kennedy's examination of post-Bismarckian Germany neglects the importance of the "vagaries of personality" and "the week-by-week shifts of diplomacy and politics" he discounts as unimportant in world politics. In the 1890's and 1900's Germany quickly rose to become the most powerful nation in Europe, and rivalled the United States and Russia in economic and military resources. Germany's downfall resulted not from economic decline, but from the foolishness of Wilhelm II's Weltpolitik, and provoking America into entering the war. Despite defeat in World War I, Germany still reigned. Hitler's rise to power in the 30's was followed by an expansionist German foreign policy, but his premature invasion of the Soviet Union and his rash declaration of war against the United States, not economic downturn, destroyed the Third Reich.

Kennedy's final analysis also errs in one unmentioned, but ultimately significant respect. He equates the influence of military power in the world of the 1600s with that of the world of the 1980s. But we live in a much different world with different dynamics of military conflict which can be summarized in two words: The Bomb.

The presence of nuclear weapons has suppressed military confrontations between the superpowers by raising the specter of atomic armageddon. Nuclear weapons are also cheaper, and create less of an economic burden than conventional weapons do--as Eisenhower knew when he implemented his New Look strategy. Most of all, nuclear weapons have forced belligerent superpowers to the negotiating table, as was evidenced after the Cuban Missile Crisis and again with the INF treaty. Eventually, nuclear weapons may produce a decrease in military expenditures if a treaty reducing conventional forces in central Europe is reached.

But Kennedy is right to point out that the 1990s will be a critical period for American foreign policy, when overseas commitments must be brought in line with domestic resources. His thesis is a compelling one, and retains much of its force despite the shortcomings noted above. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers is impressive and at times brilliant in its synthesis and insights. But as a book of advice for today's politicians it fails to equal its historical significance.