The United States can learn from history as it navigates a future geopolitical landscape, historian Stephen Kotkin said during a recent talk at the University of Notre Dame.
At a time when the United States is experiencing great power competition with China and Russia and managing a conflict with Iran, Kotkin, the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said the United States has long faced an imperative to make strategic adjustments. These adjustments are coming, finally, well after the time when U.S. economic and military global preeminence has returned to a more historical average after a relatively brief if crucial period of post-Second World War II high, he said.
“The study of history can be valuable for understanding the contemporary world and what the world might become,” Kotkin said during his March 18 lecture. The event was part of the Dean’s Forum on Global Affairs, presented by the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs with support from its Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
A global rebalancing
Kotkin based his presentation on the concept of anomalous periods, citing 1919, the time of the Versailles Peace Treaty after the First World War, when both Germany and Russia were, for the first and only time, “flat on their backs” simultaneously. The peace treaty was imposed on Germany and excluded Russia. But at least one, and perhaps both, could be expected to rise again. Both did so, and in a single generation.
Similarly, Kotkin explained, the period immediately after the Second World War was anomalous. He noted that, roughly since 1880, the United States’ share of global GDP has averaged about 25 percent. After World War II, however, this figure jumped significantly to 40 percent, while simultaneously the U.S. share of global manufacturing increased to 50 percent. That is when the U.S. committed to a colossally ambitious postwar order, Kotkin said.
Citing John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, at the peak of U.S. power, Kotkin underscored the extraordinary confidence the president exuded. “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill,” Kennedy stated, “that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Kotkin stressed that a historical lens could have helped foresee that the time when the U.S. committed to creating and defending a global postwar order was an anomalous period that could not last. More than that, he explained, U.S. leaders did not want to keep this imbalance in place. Instead, they committed to “rebalancing” the scales because they believed promoting global peace and prosperity would ensure U.S. peace and prosperity.
The plan worked well, Kotkin said, and the United States is back at its long-term average of global GDP.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government has announced, many times, that it must rebalance its commitments — but it never did so until now. In Kotkin’s view, this inescapable rebalancing has begun. It is happening haphazardly, even nastily, he said, but it cannot be avoided.
Kotkin noted that the U.S. is not in decline, but its key allies have declined, in relative terms. He cited that Europe’s share of global GDP has decreased over time, from about 30 percent in 1992 to 17 percent today (including the U.K.). Japan’s global share once climbed to nearly 18 percent, but today it is 4 percent. The U.S. share looks set to continue at its 150-year historic average, he said.
In recent years, under both Democratic and Republican leadership, the U.S. military has operated under a policy of maintaining the operational capacity for a single major theater of war at a time, Kotkin said; previously, it had planned to handle multiple conflicts at once. The U.S. continues to have treaty commitments in multiple theaters.
“Borders of victory” vs. “borders of defeat”
Kotkin also compared the Cold War — which never became a direct U.S.-Soviet conflict — to today’s conflicts (including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), which he said carry a higher risk of widening to a Third World War.
The Soviet Union, like the United States, negotiated as a victor against the Axis Powers after the Second World War, Kotkin said. The borders it established were what he characterized as “borders of victory.” It could become, more or less, a status quo power.
In contrast, Kotkin argued that adversaries with “borders of defeat” are far harder to negotiate with, and more likely to spark conflict. He cited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an example; the border was created after the independence of Ukraine and the subsequent establishment of a democratic government. For Russia, it is a border of defeat.
Kotkin suggested similarly that Iran and many Arabs view the existence of Israel as a border of defeat — one that must be eliminated — and that Taiwan is the ultimate border of defeat for Communist-run China.
Preventing a deadly world war
Kotkin said his greatest concern is the potential for a Third World War, which he believes would be exponentially more catastrophic than the last.
Part of the risk, he said, comes from a few leaders having excessively concentrated power to take actions precipitating a global conflict.
“I worry because it's the biggest possible decision... and one person can make that decision,” Kotkin said, referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Using historical examples from Pearl Harbor to Putin’s war in Ukraine, Kotkin added that world-shattering decisions can be made with little regard for the costs — including the lives of vast numbers of people — by a select few individuals.
Even in the United States, in different ways, he said, there is a concentration of authority in the form of the “imperial presidency,” a term coined some fifty years ago by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., to underscore how Congress “has effectively abdicated its power.”
This vacuum, he said, allows the president to take the nation to war without popular support or even debate. When considered in light of the far greater concentrations of power in China and Russia, this could compound the risk of a wider conflict.
Originally published by at keough.nd.edu on April 01, 2026.