The ICSA Grand Strategy Seminar Series 2014
Seminar One: Paul Kennedy on Chinese
Ascendancy and American ‘Decline’
30th January 2014
ICSA hosts a lunchtime seminar series on ‘grand strategy’, in which the work of an influential
thinker is brought to bear on a contemporary issue in international relations. The first seminar in
the 2014 series discussed ‘The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers’ – Paul Kennedy’s 1987
exploration of great power interactions – and its relevance to Sino-American relations in the
modern era. The paper that follows summarises the discussion.
For such a lengthy, rigorously-footnoted piece of scholarship, Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall
attracted a remarkably wide readership, becoming one of the best-selling books of 1988. Its huge
popularity was at least partly due to the accessibility and clarity of Kennedy’s prose, but also
owed a huge amount to the pertinence of the book’s subject matter: published at a time of
apparent transition in global power relations between the USSR, China and America, the book
examined the shifting balance of states’ power in the context of economic and technological
change. Kennedy’s willingness not only to examine a half-millennium of power politics, but also to
make predictions as to the fate of American global influence, was especially popular at a time
when the immense scale of the US defence budget was under increased scrutiny.
Recent events encourage a revisiting of Kennedy’s well-known thesis. Questions over the ‘rise’ of
China and the ‘decline’ of the United States have by no means gone away in the 25 years since the
book’s publication. If anything, they have become more relevant: President Obama’s vaunted
policy of a US ‘pivot’ to Asia has become the focus of widespread political commentary, while
debate as to the motives behind China’s so-called ‘peaceful rise’ (or, as it is now described,
‘peaceful development’) remains prominent, especially in the context of continuing regional
tensions in the South China Sea. Kennedy’s book provokes numerous questions in this regard: is
economic strength an appropriate and accurate measure of military capacity? Will the rise of
China and the decline of America follow a similar pattern to previous historical power dynamics?
Perhaps most importantly, does a change in the hegemonic world power necessarily involve
conflict?
Before examining these issues, however, a brief recapitulation of Kennedy’s main arguments is
necessary. Kennedy’s thesis can be summed up in three key points. Firstly, the strength of a great
power can only be measured in relative terms: the relative strengths of leading nations are
constantly changing. Kennedy’s conception of power is fundamentally relational, constituting the
ability to shape affairs outside of one’s own borders, whether through military, economic, or
political means. Secondly, Kennedy claims that great power ascendancy correlates with economic
durability and the availability of resources. Although Kennedy is careful to avoid strict economic
determinism, he nevertheless emphasises the importance of economic development and
productive capacity in supporting militarism, both in peacetime and wartime. The more a state’s
power increases, the more resources (usually military) are devoted to maintaining that power.
This leads to Kennedy’s third main argument: the decline of great powers correlates with ‘military
overstretch’, that is, when a power’s ambitions are greater than its resource base can provide for.
Kennedy thus reaches the conclusion that ‘since [economic and military strength] are relative, and
since all societies are subject to the inexorable tendency to change, then the international
balances can never be still, and it is a folly of statesmanship to assume that they ever would be.’
Kennedy goes on to trace the emergence of the Habsburgs, France, Britain, Germany, the USSR,
and America as great powers, foregrounding the particular economic achievements of each state
that facilitated the projection of military power.
An obvious starting point for examining the relevance and applicability of Kennedy’s model for
contemporary Sino-American relations is Kennedy’s predictions and forecasts made in the final
section of the book. Kennedy claimed to detect the early stages of a shift from bipolarity to multipolarity in global power relations. Specifically, he predicted that the global productive balance
among the larger powers would lean increasingly towards Japan and China. Meanwhile, although
he saw it as inevitable that the United States would not be able to preserve its existing position,
Kennedy stopped short of arguing that America would ‘shrink to the relative obscurity of former
leading Powers such as Spain or the Netherlands, or to disintegrate like the Roman and AustroHungarian empires’. Instead, America’s share of global production would shrink to a ‘natural size’
in proportion to its ‘geographical extent, population, and natural resources’.
‘Kennedy
claimed to
detect the
early stages of
a shift from
bipolarity to
multi-polarity
in global
power
relations’
How accurate were Kennedy’s predictions? He was certainly right about the increasing multipolar
nature of the international community. Although some commentators continue to insist on a
global divide between authoritarianism and liberal internationalism, the 2008 financial crisis – the
first and most significant post-war economic crisis that originated in the United States – dealt a
significant blow to American pretensions as an ideological world leader. Kennedy was also broadly
correct in his predictions on the rise of China, although he certainly underestimated the rate of
growth. His forecast that China’s economy would be ‘bigger than any European power by 2020’
now seems conservative given that China’s GDP is already almost 2.5 times the size of Germany’s
(and almost as big as Britain, France and Germany’s combined). Kennedy was arguably less
prescient in his predictions on the fate of the Japanese economy, failing to foresee the country’s
‘lost decade’ of deflation. He was not the only one to miss this, though: the majority of
economists at the time also failed to make accurate predictions regarding the Japanese economy.
Meanwhile, the jury is still out on Kennedy’s predictions regarding the United States, partly due to
the vague nature of the predictions themselves. Although America’s share of global production is
indeed shrinking, it is doing so only slowly, and the United States continues to maintain a military
spending budget far greater than those of other leading powers in both real terms and as a
percentage of GDP.
The mixed success of Kennedy’s predictions perhaps reflects some wider weaknesses in his theory
of global power dynamics. In general terms, Kennedy’s thesis has been critiqued for its occasional
lapse into economic determinism and its overly materialist emphasis. Practically, these
weaknesses manifest themselves in a number of different ways. Firstly, Kennedy presents ‘great
power status’ as being defined by the ability to sustain large-scale conflicts. However it
increasingly seems that great powers have reason to avoid total war, not least due to the risk of
mutual nuclear annihilation. Secondly, Kennedy’s emphasis on economic factors as the
determinants of global power elide important ideological and cultural factors involved in the
functioning of power. In other words, while Kennedy focuses on power-as-capacity, he neglects
how wealth and other material determinants of power are applied. This ‘soft’ power is incredibly
important, and can be seen in the abilities of governments to generate consent and support for
their policies, for example. Kennedy also underplays the importance of alliances in global power
politics. Although he recognises that the European Union has become a major power broker in
contemporary politics, for instance, little attention is paid to the fact that there is nothing obvious
or inevitable about such a continental alliance. The issue of alliances is especially important in the
case of America and China: America sits at the heart of what is, perhaps, the most comprehensive
set of alliances in global history. China, by contrast, seems to have very few useful allies – North
Korea being more a liability than an asset. These diverging alliance networks could have important
consequences for short term regional security.
‘…for all the
rhetoric of a
‘peaceful rise’,
there is no
doubt that
China’s ascent
has been
unusually
rapid…’
Bearing in mind these potential pitfalls of Kennedy’s thesis, what are we to make of the current
power dynamic between America and China? Various interpretations of the American ‘pivot’ to
Asia are feasible: one might read it as a hollow gesture, as an attempt to reassert American
influence in the region, or as part of a calibrated process by which China’s rise is to be tempered
by American influence. Chinese motives are equally debatable: for all the rhetoric of a ‘peaceful
rise’, there is no doubt that China’s ascent has been unusually rapid: according to an article
published in Foreign Policy, the speed of China’s rise in terms of percentage of global GNP and
trade is unprecedented, even in comparison to the other great powers examined by Kennedy.1
For instance, whereas China accounted for just 2.2% of global GNP output in 1982 (the year of
Deng Xiaoping’s sweeping reforms), by 2012 this had risen to 14.6%. Deng also promoted a policy
of hiding China’s capacities, and biding time before developing greater military capabilities.
Given the difficulty in discerning rhetoric from real intentions, the prospects of avoiding conflict
in a global power transition rely to a significant extent on one’s interpretation of Sino-American
relations. In 2004, John Mearsheimer predicted a clash: ‘if China continues its impressive
economic growth over the next few decades’, he claimed, ‘the United States and China are likely
to engage in an intense security competition with considerable potential for war.’ Recent events
lend some support to this prediction. The dispute over the Senkaku Islands, for example, is a
clear example of a regional flash-point that could potentially lead to wider conflict. American
economic and military support for other nations in the region might well be a source of hostility,
as China’s implementation of an Air Defence Identification Zone over the East China Sea and oil
drilling in contested territory continues to test the U.S. regional alliance system.
However, there are several reasons to challenge such a view. Firstly, predictions of a great power
clash assume an American foreign policy that is concerned first and foremost with actively
maintaining and increasing global power relative to China. In fact, not only is it questionable
whether America would be willing to enter a war with China over the Senkaku Islands and the
South China Sea, but an increasingly influential body of opinion in American politics (most visible
in the popularity of the libertarian Republican Rand Paul) favours a less interventionist foreign
policy, and is more akin to Paul Kennedy’s prescription for the U.S. that ‘there is a need to
“manage” affairs so that the relative erosion of the United States’ position takes place slowly and
smoothly, and is not accelerated by polices which bring merely short-term advantage but longerterm disadvantage’.
d
‘Despite
obvious
contradictions
in the Chinese
political
system, the
prospects for
reform are
encouraging’
Secondly, historical precedent by no means suggests that China’s rise makes a clash inevitable.
The early twentieth-century transition from British to American pre-eminence and the rapid
growth of the Japanese economy from the late 1940s demonstrate that peaceful alterations to
the great-power landscape are possible. Late nineteenth-century Germany – perhaps the closest
historical parallel to modern-day China? – offers important lessons in this respect. Like China,
Bismarck’s Germany was a rising power, the current and projected future capabilities of which
drew the attention and anxiety of other European powers. Bismarck’s strategy of convincing
prospective rivals that it harboured no expansive ambitions ultimately proved unsustainable, as
complex systems of alliances proved too difficult to maintain. Although there are certainly
important differences in context (not least the changing role of the use of force in international
relations since the nineteenth century, and the evolution of alliance system dynamics), the
unravelling of Bismarck’s strategy nonetheless suggests that China’s seemingly cautious foreign
policy might have dangerous unintended consequences. This makes liberal reform all the more
important for China as a method for demonstrating its commitment to a ‘peaceful rise’. Despite
obvious contradictions in the Chinese political system, the prospects for reform are encouraging.
The introduction of at least some forms of democratisation to bridge the gap between grassroots
and national party leadership would be a significant step in this direction; by the same token
while social networking, though heavily restricted, has recently been used effectively to hold
middle-ranking party officials to account.
‘Although
economic
power
continues to be
reflected in
military
capability,
global
influence is
increasingly
measured
through soft
power and
alliances’
This of course suggests one final reason for predicting a non-violent rise: China’s economic
prosperity is based upon its already integrated position in the international system. With some
40% of China’s GNP derived from exports (18% of which go to the U.S.), China has an
overwhelming interest in further participating in, rather than challenging, the current
international order. The increasingly multipolar nature of global power relations (which Kennedy
himself identified) makes the issue of great power transition much more complex. As John
Ikenberry has noted, China’s rise is a threat not merely to the United States, but to the Westerncentred international world order as a whole. Based on deep political foundations in the
aftermath of WWII, this world order is built around international laws, coalitions and widelyagreed rules and institutions – features that make current great power relations radically
different to those of the past. The general commitment to open markets also ensures that this
system is far easier to join than it is to challenge or overturn. It seems, therefore, that whatever
the tensions provoked by China’s continuing economic and military development, conflict is
likely to remain localised and predominantly non-violent.
Where does this leave Kennedy’s thesis? Kennedy’s core argument about the correlation of
productive capacity and world power still holds significant sway. Although Kennedy failed to
examine the multi-directional relationships between economic, military and political power,
there is clearly an important connection between global influence and economic might.
However, it seems that this relationship is increasingly complex in the modern-day international
system. Although economic power continues to be reflected in military capability, global
influence is increasingly measured through ‘soft power’ and alliances; factors that were
neglected by Kennedy’s thesis. China now holds the international economic balance, if only
fractionally, and its development looks set to continue. The next U.S. president therefore has
the unenviable task of performing on the world stage in a manner that neither abandons
American alliances and retreats inwards, nor attempts to reverse American decline and
constrain China too directly.
Compiled by Richard Brown and Sam Dickson
Other seminars in the ICSA Grand Strategy series
Applying Halford Mackinder’s Heartland Theory: Is there still a physical ‘pivot’ in
international relations?
(20th March 2014)
The Decline and Fall of the European Empire (What would Gibbon make of the EU?)
(15th May 2014)
Hobbes’ Leviathan and the Arab States’ Crises
(10th July 2014)
Thinking across Regions: Braudel, the Annalistes and the Mediterranean
(18th September 2014)
Still the City on the Hill? Alexis de Tocqueville on Democracy in (Modern) America
(20th November 2014)
For more information on the ICSA grand strategy seminar series, please
contact the series organiser, Richard Brown, at [email protected]