The Overstretch Myth

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David H. Levey and Stuart S. Brown

Foreign Affairs, March/April 2005

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Summary: The United States' current account deficit and foreign debt are not dire threats to its global position, as would-be Cassandras warn. U.S. power is firmly grounded on economic superiority and financial stability that will not end soon.

David H. Levey recently retired after 19 years as Managing Director of Moody's Sovereign Ratings Service. Stuart S. Brown is Professor of Economics and International Relations in the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

Would-be Cassandras have been predicting the imminent downfall of the American imperium ever since its inception. First came Sputnik and "the missile gap," followed by Vietnam, Soviet nuclear parity, and the Japanese economic challenge--a cascade of decline encapsulated by Yale historian Paul Kennedy's 1987 "overstretch" thesis.

The resurgence of U.S. economic and political power in the 1990s momentarily put such fears to rest. But recently, a new threat to the sustainability of U.S. hegemony has emerged: excessive dependence on foreign capital and growing foreign debt. As former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has said, "there is something odd about the world's greatest power being the world's greatest debtor."

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