U.S. leaders and national security officials have long argued that a dynamic domestic environment is the foundation for American global power. U.S. rivals emphasize the same theme: Chinese officials endlessly repeat a narrative about the decline of the United States (and the West more generally) and the coming transition of global leadership to a Sino-centric East. Yet few analyses have tried to determine just what it means to have a vibrant and competitive society.
What characteristics of a nation or society contribute to competitive advantage? What are the right ways to think about long-term success in such rivalries? In a three-year study for the Office of Net Assessment in the U.S. Department of Defense, RAND sought to offer insight on these questions.
In the first phase, we reviewed a large comparative literature on the fates of nations and societies, conducted country case studies, and reviewed empirical literature on specific issues raised by that research to identify the characteristics of societies that are consistently associated with national dynamism and competitive position.
In the second phase, we have tackled several specific questions that emerged from the initial research, on the concept of success on rivalries, the sources of national renewal, the nature of the current competitive paradigm, and Chinese and Russian views of societal basis for national dynamism.
Taken together these studies offer a wide-ranging portrait of the sources of national competitive advantage and the routes to success in rivalries.
