Why Great Civilizations Fail

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FROM ATHENS TO AMERICA: WHY GREAT CIVILIZATIONS FAIL Roger D. Masters Nelson A. Rockefeller Professor Emeritus of Government Dartmouth College History shows that dominant powers (whether called Hegemons or Empires) confront challenges to their status as circumstances change. Toynbee called it “Challenge and Response.” Some hegemonic powers adapt successfully as did the Roman Republic when geographic expansion led to insufficient military strength and communications to police longer frontiers. Others, like ancient Athens, fail to change strategy and tactics when their expanding power confronted new obstacles. In this case, the result was a loss of Athenian primacy after the city was sacked and Alexander the Great’s Empire established rule over the Eastern Mediterranean. Alexander’s Empire was even more evanescent, however, because his military victories were never followed by effective planning for the inevitable transition from battlefield to administering law and order. Often, as was the case for the U.S., a state rises to primacy through events that were not fully planned by its leaders. Throughout the 19th century, Americans assumed that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans provided an impassible barrier to any enemy attacks, permitting a foreign policy of “no entangling alliances.” Our war with Spain concerned threats on the North American continent rather than the European balance of power. American entry in the First World War, while hotly opposed by some, was seen by Woodrow Wilson as a way to “Make the World Safe for Democracy” – i.e., to preserve political principles favorable to our trade and economic interests – not to embark on a permanent role in European power politics. When Hitler’s rise to power and military conquests of Czechoslovakia and France renewed the threat of German hegemony in Europe, strong feelings – symbolized by the “America First” movement
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