States have two kinds of power: latent power and military power.

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.

Simply put, the most powerful state is the one that prevails in a dispute.

The Soviet Union and its empire disappeared in large part because its smokestack economy could no longer keep up with the technological progress of the world's major economic powers.

Decapitation is a fanciful strategy.

The ideal situation for any state is to experience sharp economic growth while its rivals' economies grow slowly or hardly at all.

This self-defeating behavior, so the argument goes, must be the result of warped domestic politics.