The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

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   A great power that spends too much on its military, more than its economy can sustain long-term, risks weakening exactly when it looks strongest.

   The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers · 1987

   Military overextension weakens a power precisely when it seems strongest

   Kennedy studied five centuries of great powers — Spain, France, Britain — and found a repeated pattern: each ended up spending more on its military than its economy actually produced. He called this imperial overstretch, when military ambitions outrun the real resources available to sustain them.

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