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Debt and Power: The United States' Debt in Historical Perspective

University of Cambridge, UK

The United States' borrowing poses a potential threat to its long-term external power. This is not because the United States' fiscal debt is large in relative terms, or because rising debt necessarily threatens a state's power, but because the United States has now indebted itself to China, and this financial relationship fundamentally changes the political terms on which the United States has borrowed since the 1960s. The consequences of that change may force American presidents to consider questions about the domestic viability of their foreign policy in a way that has not been necessary since the beginnings of the Cold War. Neither liberals nor realists are equipped to understand the significance of this change, because of the way in which they conceive power in relation to the interaction between domestic and international politics.

Key Words: debt • international political economy • liberalism • power • realism • United States

International Relations, Vol. 21, No. 3, 305-323 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0047117807080198


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