From Wealth to Power by Fareed
Zakaria
When Do Nations Become Assertive?
Fareed Zakaria, the managing editor of Foreign Affairs, tries to understand
why the United States decided in 1898 that it was time to start acting like a
world power. His answer lies in the transference of the governments main
power from Congress, which was concerned primarily with the needs of its
individual constituencies, to a presidency occupied by dynamic leaders
such as Benjamin Harrison and Theodore Roosevelt, who once declared
that when the interests of the American people demanded that a certain
act should be done, and I had the power to do it, I did it unless it was
specifically prohibited by law. The lessons Zakaria learns from the
example of America have useful applications to contemporary political
science; one might consider, for example, the ways in which a politically
unified Germany or a economically powerful Japan differs from the 19th-
century America that was politically and economically strong; the
presence of both qualities would appear to be required for a nation to flex
its muscles on the international scene. Although it never quite completely

answers the why, From Wealth to Power does extremely well on the how
and the even more important so?
Personal Review: From Wealth to Power by Fareed Zakaria
In From Wealth to Power Fareed Zakaria presents two competing theories
of foreign policy, applies his own modifications to one theory, and
compares them with the actual evolution of American foreign policy from
1865 to 1908. The following three paragraphs summarize his thesis.
1. A theory of foreign policy is a method of understanding past and
predicting future motives, intentions or goals of a nation's interactions with
others, regardless of the outcomes. This is in contrast with a theory of
international politics which seeks to explain and predict outcomes. A
primary goal of a theory of foreign policy is to understand and predict when
a nation is likely to adopt an expansive foreign policy by increasing its
military forces, asserting itself diplomatically, or attempting to annex or
conquer territory.
2. The two traditional theories of foreign policy are classical realism and
defensive realism. Classical realism holds that a nation will adopt an
expansive foreign policy when it has the resources to do so. Defensive
realism takes the position that nations develop expansive foreign policies
in reaction to perceived threats. Zakaria presents his own modification of
classical realism, which he calls state-centric realism. In this variation, he
posits that not only must a nation have the resources to implement an
expansive foreign policy, but an adequate portion of the nation's resources
must be available to the state, the national government, the makers and
implementers of foreign policy.
3. Zakaria justifies replacing classical realism with state-centric realism
based on (1) logical argument: national resources the state cannot utilize
cannot support a larger army and (2) the example of the United States
immediately after the Civil War when the US became wealthy as a nation
but maintained a minimal national government. He then examines events
in US diplomatic history to determine whether they are more consistent
with state centric realism or defensive realism. His conclusion is that state
centric realism is far more consistent with observed behavior than
defensive realism.
In the process of reaching this conclusion, Zakaria touches on several
interesting themes in American history in from 1865 to 1908:
1. The federal government's reconstruction of the South following the Civil
War was largely a failure. When it was ended as a result of the 1876
election, the old power elite and structures, minus slavery, returned. The
real changes in the South came about over the next century as a result of
the rise of the national economy and national market starting in the 1880s.
As a closed regional market, the market inefficiencies of regionalism and
racial discrimination in the South were hidden by the lack of competition.

As interregional trade grew, the South had to make better use of all its
resources to compete effectively. In the process, it became part of a more
united nation.
2. The rise of the national economy and market also transformed the
federal government by inserting it into the management of commerce and
the economy in the 1880s and 1890s. Key events were the Interstate
Commerce Act in 1887 and the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890.
3. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 transformed the federal
bureaucracy from a small group of appointees based on political patronage
(the practice since Andrew Jackson instituted the "spoils system") to a
larger cadre of career bureaucrats.
4. Slowly and step-by-step, Presidents Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, and
Cleveland clawed back the authority of the presidency as an independent
branch of the federal government. Under Presidents Andrew Johnson and
Grant, much presidential authority had shifted to the Senate, which
expanded its advice and consent role to include the selection of cabinet
secretaries and the negotiation of treaties, and to the House, which
attached conditions to appropriation bills that made funding contingent on
the President adopting specified policies.
These themes increased the power of the federal government by uniting
the nation, increasing its role in the economy, and creating a professional
bureaucracy. They also provided the conditions necessary (and sufficient,
as events have shown) for the US to adopt a more expansive foreign
policy under Zakaria's theory of state-centric realism.
Zakaria also notes that the rise of the power of the state in the US, in
response to domestic economic development, was notably different that in
Europe where state power usually rose in direct response to foreign
military threats.
From Wealth to Power is a valuable contribution to the literature of foreign
policy and international politics. It makes a particularly good companion
volume to Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of Great Powers which
focuses primarily on the historical outcomes of foreign policies. (Zakaria
studied under Kennedy as an undergraduate at Yale.)
It was fascinating to see a political scientist / historian carefully and
consciously apply the scientific method in his work: Zakaria proposes
competing hypotheses then presents and analyzes data with the goal of
showing that one of the hypotheses is inconsistent with the data and,
therefore, false. Beyond the thesis of his book, he has thereby made a
major contribution to making political science a real science.
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