ABSTRACT
States rise and fall in their international status. Some emerge as the premier powers and even hegemons of their day, while others drop out of the ranks of leading states and even suffer a loss of their statehood. In contrast to the fate of Spain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, others sometimes manage to recover their great-power position as Germany did after World War I and China appears to be doing now. Naturally, the processes and consequences of changes at the top of the international hierarchy are a matter of significant interest to officials and scholars alike. There was, for instance, in the 1970s a debate about the extent and implications of America’s relative decline, a debate that has ironically been replaced in the 1990s by questions about the endurance of the U.S. “unipolar moment.”1 As suggested by popular titles such as Le Défi Américain and Japan as Number 1,2 it is not unnatural for concerned observers to call policy and public attention to foreign rivals seemingly poised to mount a serious challenge to one’s global position.
