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The paper investigates the relationship between national debt and inter-state political relations. The accumulation of national debt, and subsequent relations between debtor and creditor at the international level, are considered as unintended consequences of strategic choices. The paper wants to explain how both domestic and international factors contribute to the accumulation of national debt and how this process modifies relations amongst states in the international system. The research will focus particularly on the accumulation of national debt in the United States, performing a quantitative analysis of its recent trends on one side (debt holdings), and a historical comparison with the accumulation of national debt in the UK in the period between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. The paper argues that the shape of the debt relationship between nations can influence the transition of power in the international system, as it happened already in the case of the transition between the UK and the US as dominant/emerging hegemonic power. The paper also explores on the differences in the consideration of debt for different types of countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]