Since most scholars would agree that East Asia was far more advanced than the West before the eighteenth century, it draws a peculiar attention that how the "West" was able to achieve the "World Power" after the eighteenth century. In The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, Paul Kennedy presented various interesting points which might have led Europe into a different direction than any other countries in Asia, except for Japan. Due to Japan's different characteristics, his argument about Europe's success can be also applied to explain Japan's singularly successful adaptation to the challenges in nineteenth century. .
Kennedy's core argument in Europe's success lies in the idea of the political fragmentation. Due to its geography, Europe never allowed one single powerful government. Decentralized government played important role in gearing Europe into the innovation. Kennedy emphasized that small rivalry states checked each other's strength, and constantly pushed themselves to be more advanced in technology. Therefore, the competitive environment in Europe contributed to such an enormous period of growth and innovation. By looking at the situation in Japan during the Civil War era, it is evident that Japan had similar competitive environment. Divided states were constantly fighting, and in order to conquer other states, better technology was crucial factor. Thus, Japanese learned to appreciate the innovation, and were willing to accept everything that would make them stronger. Even though Japan was later unified under Tokugawa's control, it could be thought as a federation rather than one strongly unified country. For that reason, Japan continued to be divided into the small states, and they frequently checked each other's power, and tried to maintain the balance of power. This situation segregated Japan from other eastern countries, who were mainly appreciating the tradition and discouraged the innovation, and put Japan in a similar pathway as Europe.
