Yet at the climactic moment, imperial German and imperial Japanese leaders did not feel like they were moving up. Stagnation, encirclement, or some combination convinced them that their moment was slipping away. A revisionist power that has begun to fear the future may well act more impulsively than one that thinks tomorrow will be better than today. That’s the real trap we ought to worry about—the trap in which an aspiring superpower peaks and then refuses to bear the painful consequences of descent.
