From 2005:
http://www.counterpunch.org/sale02222005.html By KIRKPATRICK SALE
It is quite ironic: only a decade or so after the idea of the United States as an imperial power came to be accepted by both right and left, and people were actually able to talk openly about an American empire, it is showing multiple signs of its inability to continue. And indeed it is now possible to contemplate, and openly speculate about, its collapse.
The neocons in power in Washington these days, those who were delighted to talk about America as the sole empire in the world following the Soviet disintegration, will of course refuse to believe in any such collapse, just as they ignore the realities of the imperial war in Iraq. But I think it behooves us to examine seriously the ways in which the U.S. system is so drastically imperiling itself that it will cause not only the collapse of its worldwide empire but drastically alter the nation itself on the domestic front.
All empires collapse eventually: Akkad, Sumeria, Babylonia, Ninevah, Assyria, Persia, Macedonia, Greece, Carthage, Rome, Mali, Songhai, Mongonl, Tokugawaw, Gupta, Khmer, Hapbsburg, Inca, Aztec, Spanish, Dutch, Ottoman, Austrian, French, British, Soviet, you name them, they all fell, and most within a few hundred years. The reasons are not really complex. An empire is a kind of state system that inevitably makes the same mistakes simply by the nature of its imperial structure and inevitably fails because of its size, complexity, territorial reach, stratification, heterogeneity, domination, hierarchy, and inequalities.
He lists 4 reasons why empires collapse:
1. "First, environmental degradation. Empires always end by destroying the lands and waters they depend upon for survival, largely because they build and farm and grow without limits, and ours is no exception, even if we have yet to experience the worst of our assault on nature."
2. "Second, economic meltdown. Empires always depend on excessive resource exploitation, usually derived from colonies farther and farther away from the center, and eventually fall when the resources are exhausted or become too expensive for all but the elite. This is exactly the path we are on-peak oil extraction..."
3. "Third, military overstretch." (This really needs no explanation.)
4. "Finally, domestic dissent and upheaval. Traditional empires end up collapsing from within as well as often being attacked from without..."
Well, that was from 5 years ago from the left. Here is a prediction of the collapse of the American Empire from this year from the right (must be 'right' because he disagrees with Paul Klugman):
http://theburningplatform.com/blog/2010/07/06/empire-on-the-edge-of-chaos/ASPEN — The Aspen Institute never promised that all the big notions aired at its popular Aspen Ideas Festival will be full of hope and inspiration.
The sixth annual festival opened with a sobering vision of the future from financial historian and Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, who declared that history indicates the United States is an empire “on the edge of chaos.”
“My working assumption is that the financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007 has accelerated a fundamental shift in an economic balance of power,” Ferguson told a near-capacity audience in the Greenwald Pavilion, which holds 750 people.
Even before the crisis, Goldman Sachs predicted that China would overtake the United States as the world’s economic superpower by 2027, according to Ferguson. “The financial crisis has unquestionably hit the U.S. much harder than China,” he said.
And American politicians don’t have a sense of urgency, Ferguson contended. They feel the country can limp along for another 20 years or so in its current financial health without making tough decisions about fiscal policy. He believes they are wrong. The federal government’s debt has grown so large in the past decade that the United States will inevitably devote an increasing amount of taxes to it. Meanwhile it’s facing a greater burden through the Medicare and Social Security programs as Baby Boomers age. It’s also currently fighting two wars. All that while revenues have plummeted in the recession.
He goes on to add:
To add to the doom and gloom, Ferguson said the collapse could come much quicker than people realize.
“Most empires collapse fast,” Ferguson said. “They’re complex systems. They exist on the edge of chaos. It doesn’t take much to tip them over, and when they tip over, they fall apart really quickly.”
He cited the Soviet Union as an example and noted Rome’s collapse happened in just a generation.
If the United States fades as a world economic and military superpower, Ferguson sees dire consequences, regardless of whether China replaces it. One result of the U.S. loss of power, he predicted, is the greater Middle East “spiraling out of control.”
I wonder if the Romans realized they were in the decline and fall of their empire while it was happening? I suppose we are like the other empires in believing it has happened to others, but it will never happen to us.
You know we are in trouble when there is agreement from both political extremes. Not being in the "don't worry, be happy" everything will turn out ok pollyanna crowd I believe I am living in the twilight of the America as we know it. I think that just even climate change alone will do us in because not only is it happening and will not be stopped, I don't see anything being done to prepare for its consequences. In fact I've even heard the deniers question if we have any obligation to future generations concerning climate change. Meaning, let's rape and pillage the Earth and let them worry about working it out.
In 20 or 30 years from now when I am an old duffer I would love to be wrong about all of this, but I doubt it. A 300 year run(if that)--I wonder what will come after it?
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