Shifrinson, Joshua R. Itzkowitz, and Michael Beckley

Abstract
Michael Beckley’s article deserves attention for challenging the view that the United States is declining because China is rising. Its ambiguous definition of decline, however, sends the wrong impression about the distribution of economic and military power between the United States and China. Without being explicit, Beckley implies that the United States is not declining because the absolute difference of economic, military, and technological capabilities between the United States and China is growing. In contrast, both theory and history suggest that it is more important that the relative distribution of economic and military capabilities between the United States and China is falling: as I propose below, decline is best defined as a decrease in the ratio of economic and military capabilities between two great powers. As a result, even if the United States maintains a large advantage in absolute capabilities, the fact that U.S. capabilities are decreasing relative to China’s means that (1) China will find it easier to advance its interests where U.S. and Chinese goals diverge, while (2) the United States’ ability to pursue its own interests in world affairs will be increasingly constrained by Chinese power.
The remainder of this letter proceeds in four sections. First, I challenge Beckley’s definition of decline and emphasize the need to analyze the relative distribution of capabilities when assessing the decline phenomenon. Using historical examples, I next demonstrate that the relative distribution of power better captures the ability of states to compete with one another. Subsequently, I show that the United States is declining relative to China across several measures of economic and military power. Finally, I propose that the United States’ relative decline suggests a different response to China’s rise, namely, U.S. retrenchment.
Read the article here (subscription required)