How much influence does America still have?

United States bombers in the Vietnam War. Photo by Lt.Col. Cecil J. Poss of the USAF via Wikimedia Commons.

In 1987, the historian Paul Kennedy published a massive, nearly 700 page book called The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.  In normal circumstances, the book might have been lumped in with the rest of academic writing that’s seen only by scholars…if it weren’t for the book’s conclusion, which flew in the face of American exceptionalism and certainly upset some people. 

In that final section of the book, Kennedy suggests that the United States had begun a period of relative decline that began in the 1960’s.  Kennedy focussed on two major elements in his claim of the US’s decline: military strength and economic power.

The United States’ military was (and still is) largely unmatched.  Kennedy worried about overreach though, having observed the United States’ dramatic and failed attempt to fight communism in Vietnam.

And economically, Kennedy saw the United States weakening due to domestic policy and the rising economies in nations like India and China. 

At the time of the book’s publishing, he received criticism from the political scientist Joseph Nye, who argued that Kennedy had undervalued the significance of so-called “soft power.”  Nye coined this phrase.  He uses “soft power” to describe the forms of persuasion that countries hold, ie. all the ways to coerce on the world stage that don’t involve guns or dollars.  Soft powers include social values like culture, charisma, values, politics, NGOs, reputation, etc.  This all provides an avenue for countries to maintain relevance even when their “hard powers” (military and economics) decline. Kennedy recognized Nye’s criticism and now sees his conclusion with more nuance. 

On this episode of UnTextbooked, producer Will Bourell interviews Paul Kennedy on the recent erosions in the United States’ soft power and the ways in which the country can manage its relative decline and reverse its most harmful effects.

Book: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

Guest: Paul Kennedy

Producer: Will Bourell

Music: Silas Bohen and Coleman Hamilton

Editors: Bethany Denton and Jeff Emtman