The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy Versus Autocracy From the Ancient World to the US and China

Speaker(s):

Matthew Kroenig

Date of Event:

July 20, 2020

Associated SMA Project

No items found.

Speaker: Kroenig, M. (Georgetown University)

Date: 17 July 2020

Speaker Session Summary

SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Dr. Matthew Kroenig (Georgetown University) as part of its SMA General Speaker Series. Dr. Kroenig’s brief focused on his book, entitled The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy Versus Autocracy From the Ancient World to the US and China. During his brief, he contended that the foremost threat the US is facing today is the return of great power rivalry between Russia and China, two autocratic adversaries. However, democracies have balance in long-term great power competition, and although the US system has its shortcomings, its fundamentals are stronger than both Russia’s and China’s, and it is in a good position to maintain its position of leadership in the foreseeable future. He reached this conclusion by first discussing the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of both democracies and autocracies, then moving into seven case studies of democracies versus autocracies from the ancient world to present day, then finally discussing what this means for the US, Russia, and China today. Dr. Kroenig began by examining the sources of international power today to predict whether the transition of power between a declining US and a rising China is likely to continue taking place. He explained that to amass power and influence internationally, a state must be strong economically, diplomatically, and militarily. He elaborated that the domestic political institutions of a country feed directly into these three areas and therefore are the key sources of that country’s strength; the economic, diplomatic, and military facets are simply manifestations of those political institutions. Dr. Kroenig then stated that democracies promote stronger domestic institutions than autocracies do due to their openness to economic growth and innovation, stronger diplomatic alliances and international commitments, and historical military effectiveness. Autocracies spend a large percentage of their resources and effort managing and oppressing their own people and therefore cannot properly allocate attention to actually be competitive on a global scale. Next, Dr. Kroenig cited evidence from global powers throughout history, from the Roman Republic, to the British Empire, to the United States. In Long Cycle Theory of the rise and fall of great powers, leading states of the last 400 years (i.e., the Dutch Republic (1609-1712), the British Empire (1713-1945), and the United States (1945-1986)) have been the most open republics during the time. This fact is remarkable in that in 1945, there were only 12 established democracies at the time. Finally, when looking at the state of great power competition today, Dr. Kroenig asserted that the US, while threatened by China and Russia, has much stronger domestic political institutions that contribute to its economic, diplomatic, and military strength. Russia’s economy is corrupt and highly dependent on natural resources, its alliances are weak and rooted in disinformation, and it spends more on domestic security than an outward facing military. China, while economically strong, is unwilling to make economic reforms; its alliances formed as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)provoke global backlash; and its military has questionable effectiveness. Dr. Kroenig concluded by making the “hard power” case for democracy, emphasizing democracies’ ability to generate wealth and power and outlining the advantages of democracies in long-term great power rivalries.

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Matthew Kroenig

Associate Professor

Bio and Featured Works

Matthew Kroenig is a Professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. A 2019 study in Perspectives on Politics ranked him as one of the top 25 most-cited political scientists of his generation.

Dr. Kroenig is the author or editor of seven books, including The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the US and China (Oxford University Press, 2020), which was an Amazon Best Seller, including the #1 New Release in International Relations. The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy: Why Strategic Superiority Matters (Oxford University Press, 2018) was selected by the US Air Force for its professional reading list and was translated into Chinese and Korean. Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Cornell University Press, 2010) was awarded the International Studies Association Best Book Award, Honorable Mention.

His articles have appeared in many publications, including: American Political Science Review, Annual Review of Political Science, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Organization, International Security, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Strategic Studies, Politico, Security Studies, Strategic Studies Quarterly, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among others.

Dr. Kroenig is the Director of the Global Strategy Initiative and Deputy Director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. He writes a bi-weekly column for Foreign Policy. Dr. Kroenig has served as a national security adviser on the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney (2012), Scott Walker (2016), and Marco Rubio (2016). He has served in several positions in the U.S. Department of Defense and the intelligence community in the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, including in the Strategy office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the CIA's Strategic Assessments Group. He regularly consults with a wide range of U.S. government entities. In 2005, he was the principal author of the first-ever, US-government-wide strategy for deterring terrorist networks. For this work, he received the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Award for Outstanding Achievement. He is a featured character in The New York Times bestselling book, Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign against Al Qaeda, by Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker.

He has previously worked as the Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and as a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Security at Harvard University, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

Dr. Kroenig provides regular commentary for major media outlets, including PBS Newshour, Fareed Zakaria GPS, BBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR All Things Considered, and C-SPAN. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and holds an MA and PhD in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. He lives with his wife and children in Georgetown. Follow him on Twitter @kroenig.

Expertise

International Relations

Interests

Asian Studies, CH, European Studies, Military Science, Russia

Language(s)

Italian (Speak Read Write)

Featured Publications