Donald Trump's Pakistan Policy: An Application of Offensive Realism

Abstract

In 1987, Paul Michael Kennedy in his book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, predicted the downfall of the USSR. More specifically, he predicted that the USSR would succumb to strategic overextension, resulting in its downfall. He stated that this is an inevitable outcome. In December 1991, four years later, the prediction came true, and the USSR disintegrated, marking the end of the Cold War era. The primary concern at that time was the fate of the United States. Will it face a similar outcome as the USSR? Paul Kennedy argued that the United States was also facing the relative decline and will suffer the fate as did the Soviet empire.1 In 1992, Francis Yoshihiro Fukuyama, an American political scientist challenged Paul Kennedy's arguments about the US in his book The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama stated that Paul Kennedy's prediction was partially correct and was applicable to the USSR but not to the US in the current context. Fukuyama contends that history is an evolutionary process and posits that the end of history signifies that liberal democracy represents the ultimate form of government for every nation worldwide. Francis Fukuyama's argument is centered around the idea that history concluded when the USSR disintegrated. Western liberal democracy represents the culmination of human intellectual and political development. The human species has developed the most optimal political system possible and there is no further room for development. He claimed that the era of warfare has concluded, and the West has triumphed over all rival adversaries. Therefore, the likelihood of a sudden collapse or experiencing a fate similar to that of the USSR is nonexistent for the US.2