Strategic Costs of US Global Success | Stephen Kotkin

Stephen Kotkin: “Crisis” as a Paradox of Success

Stephen Kotkin argues that the United States’ current sense of crisis is largely a paradox of success. America’s power remains immense, but US-led global stability is becoming harder to manage because US success created new expectations and a more interconnected, dual-use technological environment.

1) America’s “crisis” doesn’t match its actual power

Kotkin uses a thought experiment: imagine waking in 1975 and then again in 2025. He argues the US would still be dominant across major dimensions:

• Economic: ~25% of global GDP with only ~5% of global population
• Military: about half of global military capability
• Energy: the US is again an “energy superpower”
• Innovation and tech: exemplified by Silicon Valley/Stanford
• Culture and influence: other societies imitate American culture and language; he claims anti-Americanism is widespread partly because power triggers resentment

He concludes that the “decline” narrative is misguided: the US is not weakening in absolute terms.

2) The geopolitical struggle looks similar—but the conditions are radically different

Kotkin says the broad geopolitical struggle resembles the past:

• In 1975: the confrontation was between
  • US maritime-alliance power and
  • a Eurasian land-based authoritarian empire (the Soviet Union; China as a subordinate model)
• In 2025: roles have effectively shifted (China/Russia), but the type of conflict remains similar:
  • land autocracies vs. a maritime alliance model

What has changed is the environment:

• Everything is interconnected now (e.g., smart devices like “smart refrigerators” can be hacked), creating new domestic vulnerabilities.
• Everything is dual-use: civilian technology can be repurposed militarily, making separation of civilian and military innovation far harder than during the Cold War.
• He illustrates dual-use risk with examples involving social media and modern communications enabling targeting and killing of individuals.

3) US industrial supply chains created strategic bottlenecks

Another major difference from 1975:

• The US shipped much manufacturing capacity to China, including areas Kotkin says the US can’t easily replicate—he highlights shipbuilding as a critical capability now largely outside US control.
• He argues this outsourcing creates strategic weakness because key infrastructure can be placed in an adversary’s orbit, while US/allied substitutes are constrained by vulnerability to missile threat.

4) Why success caused instability: the “open order” worked too well

Kotkin’s central causal claim:

• The post-WWII US-led order aimed not only for US prosperity, but also for others to prosper and voluntarily join the system.
• This succeeded: groups like the G5/G7 coordinated in part because US leadership created conditions for growth.
• Over time, as countries became wealthier, they demanded more voice and influence—which is normal, but the US and its allies were allegedly unprepared for managing that shift.

He also argues that US policy escalated the problem by moving from containment to enlargement after the Soviet collapse:

• After 1993, the US sought to integrate Russia and China into the broader order (e.g., admitting Russia to groupings and admitting China to institutions like the WTO despite concerns about qualification).
• Kotkin says this strategy failed because Russia and China are not like earlier integrated states (e.g., Japan, West Germany, South Korea, Taiwan). They remain autocratic, land-based powers with different histories and trajectories.
• He contrasts China’s earlier “hide and bide” posture with Xi Jinping’s shift, arguing that China didn’t truly change trajectory on its own side—while US assumptions about integration did.

5) What should replace the old equilibrium?

Kotkin ends by asking how to reach a new stabilizing arrangement:

• He wants an international order that is still open and voluntary, but with adversaries contained so there is no “hot war” between superpowers.
• He suggests this will take hard, long-term work—comparable to the effort required to build the postwar settlement after WWII—despite the prior order’s downsides (proxy wars, conflicts in Vietnam, Congo, Afghanistan, etc.).
• He frames the task as one the next generation must solve.

Presenters / Contributors

• Stephen Kotkin (main speaker/author of the commentary)
• Niall Ferguson (referenced; appears as a guest in the room, with humor mentioned about him being “locked out”)
• Contributors seated in the room (named in passing): Scott, Josh (and possibly others referred to collectively); no further identifying details provided in the subtitles.