The American paradox: A nation simultaneously ascending and descending

The United States is a paradox that defies the typical categories of power analysis. Is the United States an empire on the brink of decline, or is it still the world’s greatest concentration of human innovation? The answer is perhaps both. Thesis: The inexorable descent The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, written by scholar Paul Kennedy in 1987, remains the prism through which imperial decline is assessed to this day. “Military overstretch, and a concomitant relative decline are the consistent threats facing powers whose ambitions and security needs are greater than their resources can sustain.” The term “imperial overstretch,” coined by Kennedy, remains frightingly accurate in its analysis. The arithmetic of decline adds up quickly. The United States’ […]