"As each great power has risen in the ranks, boosted by its expanding material base, it has tended to devote more and more of its resources to military protection – to guard its interests, to deter (or defeat) jealous rivals. Affording that protection is not such a great problem when the home economy is growing swiftly; when, however, the nation concerned becomes "mature" and its growth rates slow down, it becomes ever more difficult to maintain its extensive military and strategic obligations in the face of newer, faster-growing challengers. The faltering great power thus runs the risk of what I have termed "imperial overstretch", a widening gap between its global interests and obligations and its own capacity to defend them all."
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Historians from EnglandUniversity of Oxford alumniMembers of the American Philosophical SocietyYale University faculty
Original Language: English
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Sources
'Benighted state of America', The Times (12 March 1988), p. 8
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Kennedy
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Paul Kennedy
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