Empires Rise and Fall Like Clockwork

In 1987, Yale Historian Paul Kennedy wrote a book called The Rise and Fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. You might be asking: How did he write about twenty-three years of history that hadn’t happened yet? Because he correctly observed that human history follows patterns. Dr. Kennedy accurately predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, as well as China’s growing economy, the creation of the European Union and (spoiler alert!) the steady decline of American influence in world affairs. 

Basically, the author contends that empires continue to expand until they can no longer afford to sustain the military expenditures that such expansion requires, at which point they inevitably collapse. He uses a wide range of examples from the past five hundred years to generate some pretty convincing support for his argument. According to Dr. Kennedy, one of the primary factors that he saw sinking the Soviet Union was their seemingly unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Good thing we learned from their mistakes!