It is no coincidence that during the Reagan/Bush years – the last time so assertive a foreign policy coincided with such large deficits – a book like Joseph Nye’s Bound to Lead (1990) could follow in the footsteps of Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (1988). The former made a strong case for the necessity of American global hegemony; the latter warned of “imperial overstretch.”
无怪乎在里根/老布什年代——最后一个如此鲁莽的对外政策与如此庞大的赤字共存的年代——约瑟夫·奈的《领导世界的义务》（1990年）会紧随着保罗·肯尼迪的《强权的崛起与衰落》（1988年）之后出版。前者坚持美国全球统治必须存在；而后者却警告“帝国的过度延伸”。