Professional Documents
Culture Documents
fall 2009
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from
1500-2000. Paul Kennedy @ 1987 Random House, New York
In his monograph, Paul Kennedy presents a macro approach to the relationship between
economic strength and military might for what he deems “the Great Powers” from the post
Renaissance world through the twentieth century. At the time of its release, such a large study
had not been completed to such a degree. Being the latter part of the 1980s, public opinions and
estimates already guessed the end of the Soviet Union was in the near future. However,
Kennedy drew criticism for including the United States in his model for “Great Powers” decline.
His book can be approached from multiple angles, but for our purposes, we will explore the two
prevailing approaches.
The primary purpose of the first sections of the monograph are to detail the timelines and
events that allowed for the rise and fall of sequential powers since the latter portion of the
fifteenth century. The year 1500 is chosen as a rough starting point for the book as world events
were moving society from the archaic to modernity. Warfare changed around 1500 because of
cast iron capabilities. This led to the adaptation of gun powder in canons and eventually muskets
which replaced wooden weapons and denounced the myth of unbreakable walls in fortifications.
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, military power expanded and evolved
Kennedy’s argues that the military expansion was possibly because of the new economic
power of states. The sixteenth century had seen European empires expand across Asia and
Africa while also conquering and colonizing the Middle and South America. However it may
seem as though powers must obtain a strong economy to maintain an expansive military,
Kennedy was careful to mention an internal balance of power within the great powers. As in the
Andrew S. Terrell - Capitalism & Globalization! fall 2009
case of the Dutch, the motherland became rich beyond compare for many centuries by setting
trade routes that covered all of the known world. However, the Dutch never invested heavily
into warfare technology to the extent that the Hapsburg empire would. Thereby, many powers
that seemed to have been rising to prominence Kennedy would use as examples of how
The fallacy of such thinking is that national strength is only measures by warfare
capacity. Kennedy makes adequate examples to defend his argument, however, using his model
suggests that even peacetime powers were constantly preparing for war. While this was the case
developments that also played key roles in the imperial rises of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The Renaissance did not simply stop at 1500, it was perpetuated as it spread. For
Europe was a unique continent of lose kingdoms and alliances through most of the early modern
era. Former great powers, notably those of Asia, were united and expanded rapidly.
Nevertheless, the great powers of Sung or Ming China all fell as they closed off from the world
stage. Ming China especially had moved from naval supremacy in the world to a country in
constant land defense. Leaving the world stage was their downfall. However, Kennedy would
say Ming China declined because they cutback on expansion and military spending. But China
still had to pay for land warfare so it was not as though military spending disappeared when an
Additionally, citing military spending and economic prowess as the sole factors of
defining great powers overlooks nationalist trends. The English colonies in North America did
not win their independence because they had a greater military than Great Britain, nor because
Andrew S. Terrell - Capitalism & Globalization! fall 2009
they had a stronger economy. The American War for Independence was won by the individuals
of the colonies. The lack of a strong military and economy forced the colonies to establish a
nation-state from scratch in the aftermath of the war. That is the point at which Kennedy’s
argument can be defended. Nonetheless, it overlooks the reasons and motivation to establish
The Industrial Revolution was also a key factor in the rise of great powers. Kennedy
alludes to this, but never to industrial capitalism that accelerated military technology and the
draw on states’ economies. Early globalization was composed of communication, trade, and
culture diffusion. In each of these fields the industrial revolution allowed for the accelerated
expansion. Military spending grew because of the cost of the new technology, not necessarily
because economies were expanding. For new trade routes required faster ships which were
Finally, the majority of the explored conflicts in Kennedy’s survey were alliances.
Kennedy, however, insists on focusing on individual state preeminence. The problem with this
approach is that Europe has been separated by alliances since the rise of the modern era. In each
conflict there were two opposing forces even if minute. To Kennedy’s credit, he does recognize
that European conflicts were results of interstate competition. Europe was unique from Asia and
the Native tribes of the Americas because the powers were largely isolated from each other, but
connected enough to copy technology and ensue an arms race similar to that of the twentieth
century. The world before the twentieth century was largely multipolar because of the interstate
arms race. To fuel the military spending, greater powers did have to stimulate their economies
The second point Kennedy seems to stress deals with the contemporary rise and decline
greater advantages to one state over another. The arms build up before World War I was another
example of Kennedy’s thesis that economic capability allows for military strength. Similarly, the
lack of economic capability allowed Hitler to expand as his opponents early on could not
Germany in both World Wars overextended itself and the economy along with its military
faltered. The British Empire was overextended throughout the world and slowly the empire fell
apart. Similarly, the Soviet Union at the time of the book’s publishing in 1987 was faltering
financially because they had built up a military second only to the United States. The difference
between the Soviet Union and the United States was the economic backing to arms build up.
The twentieth century was a bipolar world. Kennedy notes that after WWI, neither
Russia nor the United States took the lead because of internal resolutions in defense of isolation.
For Russia it was the Bolshevik regime which shook and transformed Russia rapidly. The then
Soviet Union grew in power to rival the United States through the half century after WWII. For
the United States, isolationism led to huge decreases in military spending and an illusion of
economic prosperity after WWI. While the world lingered into the Great Depression the two
global powers capable of revival did nothing. It took a military conflict in Europe that would
consume the world a second time by 1941 to spark economic growth and military spending.
Kennedy links the declines of former great powers to that of the Soviet Union and the
United States in the latter twentieth century. The shares of the two respective powers GNP being
Andrew S. Terrell - Capitalism & Globalization! fall 2009
spent on defense has consistently decreased while rising countries have begun to spend great
portions of their GNP. The effect of this is a steady shift in power that will play out in the
twenty-first century. While the United States remains the clear leader in the global economy, it
has not experienced the growth of countries such as China and Japan. In Kennedy’s model for
decline of great powers, the United States is giving way to the expanding economies in Europe,
Despite the large scope of the book, Kennedy’s argument is consistent with his model;
great powers rise as their economies and militaries expand, and fall as their militaries are
overextended causing havoc for the economies. History is cyclical to Kennedy’s realist approach
to empires. The problem with turning his study into a general theory or rule, is that the past is
constantly reevaluated. Political scientists may look to his study in order to form over
generalized laws for hegemony, but historians will find most use of the book in the earlier
sections where early modern powers faltered largely because of the states failed to balance the