ABSTRACT
Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers quickly became a source of discussion, both critical and supportive. The American political strategist Joseph Nye, Jr. argued that, especially in the post-Cold War era, it is necessary to reconceptualize power. Nye coined the phrase “soft power,” which contrasts “to the hard command power usually associated with tangible resources like military and economic strength.” In a colorfully titled essay “Beware of Historians Bearing False Analogies,” one American political theorist noted that “relative reduction in military outlays does not automatically translate into a higher growth rate.” The American professor of international affairs Charles Kupchan believes military spending can damage the economy, but it can also help the economy, where new technologies often emerge from military research, for example. He concludes that the relationship Kennedy suggests is ill defined, and may merely be one of many possible relationships.
