The Next American Century? Author(s): Paul Kennedy Source: World Policy Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 52-58 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40209611 Accessed: 20-07-2016 17:04 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Duke University Press, Sage Publications, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to World Policy Journal This content downloaded from 140.105.48.199 on Wed, 20 Jul 2016 17:04:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms REFLECTIONS Paul Kennedy is professor of history and director of International Security Studies at Yale University. He is the author of many works, including The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers and Preparing for the Twenty-First Century. The Next American Century? Paul Kennedy The American Century. These three words visions. True, turn-of-the-century Amer- surely constitute one of the best-known ex- icans also spoke of their country's "manifest pressions of modern international history. destiny"; but the point is that the race to The phrase was first coined by the highly dominate the global scene during the next successful American publisher, Henry Luce, 100 years was a wide open one to most stra- as the title for an article he wrote in a Febru- tegic experts. Only a few prescient figures ary 1941 edition of his own LIFE magazine. outside the United States - such as the Brit- Composed months before Hitler attacked ish prime minister William Gladstone, and the Soviet Union and Japan bombed Pearl perhaps even Wilhelm II himself, who in Harbor, it was an amazingly confident pre- 1896 had called for the nations of Europe to scription for the era to come. "American ex- unite against a future American econom- perience," exulted Luce in his article, "is the ic and political domination - sensed that key to the future.... America must be the Washington would one day come to be elder brother of nations in the brotherhood the center of world affairs. of man." Given Congress's desire to avoid war, the still-minuscule American army, An Amazing Country and the massive ambitions of other, heavily What did they, and the more numerous armed, Great Powers, this was a risky vision U.S. nationalists themselves, see in this to advance. amazing country that caused them to as- Yet how much more unlikely must the sume an ever greater American world in- idea have seemed to foreign observers if it fluence? The first factor, surely, was sheer had been advocated 40 years earlier, at the economic power. One did not have to be a beginning of the century Luce claimed as Marxist to recognize that America's mate- the "American" century? Around 1900, it rial assets - abundant land, vast mineral is true, several of the more traditional pow- resources, bounding industrial production, ers (France, Spain, the Hapsburg Empire) immense railway and road networks, bus- seemed to be fading, and the idea was being tling harbors, multimillionaires galore - advanced that the twentieth century would translated into political and strategic sig- be dominated by four great empires - the nificance as well. By the eve of the First British, the Russian, the American, and the World War, the national product of the German - that would compete against each United States was already equal to that of other. This Darwinian view of a future strug- all the other Great Powers combined, a statistic gle among the "Big Four" certainly influ- that would have amazed (and disturbed) enced Admiral von Tirpitz as he strove to Bismarck or Palmerston. create the High Seas Fleet, galvanized Brit- But there were other, less quantifiable ish imperialists like Joseph Chamberlain to signs that suggested a country on the rise. push for reforms of their own empire, and There was an energy among the people, motivated all sorts of Russian expansionist whether corporate robber barons or frontier 52 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • SPRING 1 999 This content downloaded from 140.105.48.199 on Wed, 20 Jul 2016 17:04:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms farmers, that contrasted sharply with the members, courting Turkey, Italy, Bulgaria, staider habits of the Old World. There was Romania, Greece, Japan. a sense that no limits existed to potential fu- Yet, as the British historian A. J. P. ture growth, a confidence imbued by the Taylor pointed out years ago, the only coun- vastness of the country itself compared with try that had the power to change the global crowded little states like England, Italy, the balances was that puzzling transatlantic na- Netherlands. And this broad picture of up- tion, the United States. Already by 1915 its ward mobility in turn drew millions of new financial influence was marked, and in the immigrants eager to make their own for- climactic year of 1918 its military forces tunes to the United States each year, thus were ending the stalemate on the Western boosting the collective national wealth. Front. Moreover, leaders and publics across There were, of course, many negative as- the world had to grapple with the immense pects to this bustling, rambunctious Ameri- ideological impact of the American pres- can society that appalled more traditional ence; Woodrow Wilson's calls for national foreign observers. Its political affairs, espe- self-determination, a peace without victory, cially at election times, seemed extremely freedom of the seas, and a new international corrupt even by European standards; it was order resonated everywhere from Danzig widely assumed that every vote in Congress to Dehli, altering the political discourse could be purchased. Its popular culture re- forever. pelled European aesthetes and intellectuals, as it does to this day. Its raw social energies An Erratic Path to Primacy suggested a lack of control, excess, instabil- But if the United States was destined to ity. It was probably comforting to these ob- be the next world hegemon, its path to pri- servers that the United States also seemed of macy was both erratic and half-hearted. Af- little import in world affairs after its brief ter 1919, America was an extremely reluc- war with Spain in 1898. It rejoiced in its iso- tant superpower. By all sorts of measures, lationism from Europe, its executive branch Congress voted for isolationism and neu- was weak, and, although it possessed a con- trality. The League of Nations, Wilson's siderable navy, its army was minor. America proudest creation, was abandoned. The was eccentric (in both senses of the word) army, massively augmented in 1917-18, but harmless. This was a common misper- was just as massively slashed. There were ception of the day. proposals made to abolish the Marine Corps, As it turned out, those who instinc- and some even wondered about preserving tively felt that America's great energies the State Department. The secret office that would sooner or later have an impact on deciphered foreign codes was closed down. the global balances - one thinks here also Economically, the nation opted for policies of Sir Edward Grey or of the young Wins- of almost complete self-centeredness, and ton Churchill, both of whom described the the share of its national product derived United States as being "a vast industrial from foreign trade became smaller than ever. machine" - got it right. When the Euro- Yet, paradoxically, the impact of American pean powers went to war in August 1914, commercial and financial policies abroad most experts looked forward to a swift and was more important than ever before, as was decisive outcome; but the very fact that each to be seen in the international ripple of ca- side consisted of an extensive coalition of lamities that followed the 1919 Wall Street states, with huge productive and personnel crash and the virtual elimination of open in- resources, meant that the conflict would not ternational trade that was provoked by the end quickly. As the costs of the war rapidly 1930 Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. The world mounted, both alliances looked for new desperately needed a "lender of last resort," The Next American Century? 53 This content downloaded from 140.105.48.199 on Wed, 20 Jul 2016 17:04:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms and only America had the resources to play untried atomic bomb, those monies would that role; but it chose not to do so. During be forthcoming. the 1930s, therefore, it no longer occupied its natural place at the center of the world The Elder Brother stage but, like its equally puzzling Soviet By 1945, then, Luce's purposes had been ac- equivalent, stood in the wings as the weak- complished in many parts of the world. Like ened Western democracies were faced with it or not, America was the "elder brother" the rise of fascist dictatorships. everywhere from Brazil to Australia to the It is difficult to know how long this Mediterranean. Amid the national bank- curious situation would have lasted - for ruptcy and exhaustion of most other coun- President Roosevelt and his advisors alone tries, it alone was healthy and strong, it could not have brought America out of its alone could pour out monies for postwar re- isolationism - had it not been for the re- construction.