The Political Economy of Strategy: From the Financial Revolution to the Revolution in Military Affairs

created with Anand Toprani

This is a course about how major powers make, maintain and potentially undermine themselves using several recent examples -- Great Britain, the United States, Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan, among others. We make no claims that this course will reveal clues about the end of the American Empire, or the Pax Americana, but we do argue that only through an honest accounting of the history of the political economy of strategy can students understand both the costs and benefits of hegemony.

Nations have a variety of tools at their disposal to impose their will upon others. Major media, politicians and many analysts often focus upon either “hard” power -- military might -- or “soft” power -- culture, humanitarian aid, public health, etc. -- rather than the topics of this course: productive and financial power. Contemporary discussions of U.S. military capabilities rarely take into account the implications of deindustrialization, globalization, and growing socio-economic inequality for U.S. global power and authority. In this sometimes overlooked domain we believe that students and their instructors might come to understand a dimension to national power that citizens and their leaders overlook at their peril.