Commentary How rapidly do great powers expand their military and economic capabilities? Faster than you think. There are numerous empirical examples from diplomatic and military history that capture how quickly things change for the great powers. The United States is a great case in point. The U.S. Navy had never commissioned a battleship by 1895. Yet 12 years later, the “Great White Fleet” started its two-year voyage around the world to demonstrate the arrival of the United States as a great naval power. The United States commissioned 27 battleships between 1895 and 1908, creating the yards and technology to support this expansion. In 1895, the U.S. Navy was hopelessly outdated and ranked 12th-largest in the world behind China, Sweden, and Chile. By 1908, it ranked second only to Great Britain. The United States’ meteoric rise from a naval embarrassment to a world-class naval power had taken a little more than …