American Military Power in Perspective

Abstract

The United States in 1982 cannot be described as the world’s greatest military power as it could ten years ago, but a claim of this kind would have to assume in the first place that the expression itself has an agreed and constant meaning. Military strength has been defined in almost as many ways as there have been commentators and historians who have studied the subject. It assumes in the second place that the Soviet Union was not in fact a major power before 1969 and a pre-eminent military power only latterly. There are many who would maintain that both these claims are quite without foundation, that the last ten years have seen only a particularly conspicuous rise in Soviet power; that there has been a tendency for American writers to give currency to certain features of the Soviet military build-up which they have made no conspicuous effort to understand, perhaps, because the political implications have had such political immediacy.