ENDLESS EMPIRE SPAIN'S RETREAT EUROPE'S ECLIPSE AMERICA'S DECLINE (PB 2012)

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  erosion of economic and fiscal strength needed for military power on a global scale
  
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  misuse of military power through micro-military misadventures
  
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  breakdown of alliances among major powers
  
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  weakened controls over the subordinate elites critical for any empire’s exercise of global power
  
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  insufficient technological innovation to sustain global force projection.
  

Alfred W. McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of Policing America’s Empire.

Josep M. Fradera is professor of history at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain, and author of many books on Spanish colonial history, including Colonias para después de un imperio.

Stephen Jacobson is associate professor of history at Pompeu Fabra and author of Catalonia’s Advocates.