Measuring National Power in the Postindustrial Age

摘要

The arrival of postindustrial society has given rise to the suspicion that the traditional bases of national power have been fundamentally transformed and, as such, that the indices used to measure the relative power of national should be reassessed as well. This suspicion has special resonance given the fact that countries like the Soviet Union and Iraq, classified as relatively significant powers by some aggregate indicators of capability, either collapsed through internal enervation or proved utterly ineffectual when their capabilities were put to the test in war.