Great powers must be forever vigilant and never subordinate survival to any other goal, including prosperity.

Offensive realism predicts that the United States will send its army across the Atlantic when there is a potential hegemon in Europe that the local great powers cannot contain by themselves.

A state's potential power is based on the size of its population and the level of its wealth.

The German air offensives against British cities in World Wars I and II not only failed to coerce the United Kingdom to surrender, but Germany also lost both wars.

Decapitation is a fanciful strategy.

In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler believed that his great-power rivals would be easy to exploit and isolate because each had little interest in fighting Germany and instead was determined to get someone else to assume the burden. He guessed right.

The most dangerous states in the international system are continental powers with large armies.