Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower

246 Pages·2018·2.66 MB·English

by  Michael Beckley

Unrivaled
a volume in the series
Cornell Studies in Security Affairs
Edited by Robert J. Art, Robert Jervis, and Stephen M. Walt
A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress.cornell.edu.
Unrivaled
Why America Will Remain
the World’s Sole Superpower
Michael Beckley
Cornell University Press
Ithaca and London
Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges receipt of a grant
from the Faculty Research Awards Committee at Tufts University,
which aided in the publication of this book.
Copyright © 2018 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book,
or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without
permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address
Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca,
New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.
First published 2018 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Beckley, Michael, author.
Title: Unrivaled : why America will remain the world’s sole
superpower / Michael Beckley.
Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2018. | Series: Cornell
studies in security affairs | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2018004047 | ISBN 9781501724787 (cloth ; alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: United States—Foreign relations—21st century. |
United States—Foreign relations—China. | China—Foreign
relations—United States. | Unipolarity (International relations) |
Hegemony. | Great powers.
Classifi cation: LCC E895 .B43 2018 | DDC 327.73009/05—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004047
To Mom and Dad
For everything

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1. Why America? 1
2. The Pillars of Power 10
3. Economic Trends 33
4. Military Trends 62
5 . Future Prospects 98
6. The Unipolar Era 135
Notes 155
Works Cited 179
Index 223

vii

Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to many people for making this book possible. Chief
among them are six outstanding mentors that guided my path from stu-
dent to professor. Ryan Mills, Melissa Wade, and Carrie Rosefsky Wickham
taught me how to teach and inspired me to become an educator. Richard
Betts, Andrew Nathan, and Robert Jervis supervised my Ph.D. dissertation
and shaped how I think about international relations.
I would not have been able to write a book like this if I did not work at
two wonderful institutions, Tufts University and Harvard’s Kennedy
School of Government, where scholars are encouraged to study big ques-
tions and not to worry too much about traditional academic boundaries. I
would particularly like to thank Kelly Greenhill, Richard Eichenberg, Nata-
lie Masuoka, Nimah Mazaheri, Steven Miller, Malik Mufti, Dennis Rasmus-
sen, Elizabeth Remick, Tony Smith, Jeffrey Taliaferro, and Stephen Walt for
their support.
I owe tremendous thanks to the faculty at Dartmouth’s Dickey Center for
International Understanding, my academic home away from home, where
I received help at every stage of writing this book, from developing the
ideas to tracking down the data to writing the proposal. I am especially
grateful to Stephen Brooks, Jeffrey Friedman, Jennifer Lind, Daryl Press,
Benjamin Valentino, and William Wohlforth for expert feedback.
Over the years, many friends have had a hand in this project. Stefano
Recchia not only studied with me, but also had the (dis)pleasure of living
with me for most of graduate school. He has been like an older brother,
showing me the ropes in academia and how to live a balanced life. Mike
Horowitz has helped me in countless ways, from research to writing to ne-
gotiating the academic job market. I will never be able to return the favor,
ix