Geopolitics Because of the inherently competitive nature of
Citations (1)
- The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers whole source · open book
Since this danger was even greater than that posed by Spain a century earlier, the Dutch were forced to expand their own army (it was 93,000 strong by 1693) and to devote ever more resources to garrisoning the southern border fortresses. This drain upon Dutch energies was twofold: it diverted vast amounts of money into military expenditures, producing the upward spiral in war debts, interest repayments, increased excise duties, and high wages that undercut the nation’s commercial competitiveness in the long term; and it caused a severe loss of life during wartime to a population which, at about two million, was curiously static throughout this entire period. Hence the justifiable alarm, during the fierce toe-to-toe battles of the War of Spanish Succession (1702–1713), at the heavy losses caused by Marlborough’s willingness to launch the Anglo-Dutch armies into bloody frontal assaults against the French.23 The English alliance which William III had cemented in 1689 was simultaneously the saving of the United Provinces and a substantial contributory factor in its decline as an independent great power—in rather the same way in which, over two hundred years later, Lend-Lease and the United States alliance would both rescue and help undermine a British Empire which was fighting for survival under Marlborough’s distant relative Winston Churchill.
chapter: Geopolitics