How The Empire Dies, Part 1: Introduction

Author’s Note: This will be the first part in a series of essays where I will outline how the American Empire is declining and what that will mean for the future. The essays will be organized regionally, examining how the United States has exercised control over a particular region, why American influence is declining, what nation(s) stand to replace the United States influence in each given region, and what this means for the future. The final essay will tie everything together and look at the future of the world and the United States holistically.

There really has never been another power like the United States in the history of the world, in terms of its ability to project military, economic, and cultural power. For all the glory of Rome, it was ultimately a Mediterranean power – four continents, not to mention vast areas of Africa, were unknown to Rome. American power, by contrast, is felt the world over. Consider the world of 1914. America policed Latin America for sure, but it was Great Britain’s responsibility to keep the seas safe. Meanwhile, Austria-Hungary kept the Balkans at peace and Tsarist Russia was hegemon over Eastern Europe, while the German Reich kept Russia in check. The Ottoman Empire patrolled the Middle East and Japan was the great power in the Pacific, keeping both revolutionaries and China neutralized. Today, the American Empire does all of these things (for now).

For decades the U.S. dollar has been the default currency of the world. The world economy lives and dies by the U.S. dollar. While there may be a recession in Asia and Europe that does not affect the U.S., there is no way this would work in reverse. An American recession will become a global recession. That is part of the reason why the 2008 recession was so bad – because it started in the United States there was no one around to prop the system up, as the U.S. did when East Asia had a very nasty recession in the late 1990s.

However, it is the cultural power of the American Empire that has truly been unprecedented. Everyone on earth knows about McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. No genre is more “American” than the Western; at one time, the Western was so popular that Italians began making their own Westerns after Hollywood could no longer keep up with the demand. No nation on earth has achieved this, and this is why the post-American world will be radically different than our own. In many ways, it will be unthinkable. But all the same, that day is coming.

Objectively looking at the growth of the American Empire, ignoring whatever one may say of the particulars of its influence, it is impressive. In 1791, it only formally spanned from the East Coast to the Mississippi River, and even this was contentious. In reality, the U.S. was able to exercise little control over the western portion of its territory. In all practicality, the U.S. was restricted to the Eastern Seaboard. Eventually, expansion and dramatic growth did come. By 1850, within living memory of its founding, the new nation had a state on the Pacific. Just a century later, the United States was a superpower, the hegemon over half the world. A mere 41 years after that, in 1991, and only 200 years after it had been restricted to the Atlantic Coast, it ruled the world and now as an unprecedented power. 

In terms of other great powers, there really is nothing like this. It took centuries for Rome, for all its imperial might, to take over the far smaller Mediterranean region. Sure, the Mongols rapidly built their empire, but that disappeared quickly, and even more tellingly, left little impact. Where the Mongols conquered, the Mongols eventually would take on the characteristics of the people they conquered. The Mongols became Chinese in China, Persian in Persia, etc. But, this is not the case for the American Empire. The United States has been remarkably effective at implanting its own culture. Just look at how radically Germany has changed since 1945.

It is hard to believe just how, only a few years ago, it looked as if the American Empire would go on forever. The USSR disappeared and now the U.S. was free to expand its power wherever it wanted. American movies and music would be enjoyed around the world and no economy could match it. After a brief period in the 1980s and early 1990s, where it looked like Japan might challenge the U.S. economically, it turned out they were no match. Optimism was the order of the day.

Then, something went wrong. It’s something that almost everyone knows at this point. It is normal for the “glory days” to contain the seeds of eventual decline, and the American Empire is no exception. The wealth of the U.S. economy created multiple generations of weak men, completely disconnected from the tenacity of their ancestors. The foundational source that will eventually destroy the American Empire is its hubris, an engrained arrogance that developed as a result of its past military successes, successes made by stronger men. The United States really was convinced that it could turn Iraq and Afghanistan into secular democracies, nations just like America. And, the Empire really was convinced that it could make China democratic, too (simply by trading with them). The history of all these nations suggests otherwise; but in its egotism, the United States fatally wounded itself.

As with any other empire, the American Empire cannot last forever. It will eventually fall. Today, we are seeing the beginnings of that great retreat – especially with the events in Ukraine. In varying degrees, in almost every region on earth, another nation threatens to become a regional hegemon, supplanting the United States. The unipolar world that has existed since the end of the Cold War is over. I do not think that we are heading towards a new bipolar world, as existed in the Cold War, with China replacing the Soviet Union as the Empire’ chief rival. China will be a great power and will be able to exercise a great deal of power all over the world, but where the world is really heading is a multipolar world with various powers ruling over a given region. Some of these hegemons will be in the region they currently dominate. In some cases, the region will be influenced by an outside force. The Middle East and the Orthodox worlds will likely both have a native hegemon, Africa will likely have a foreign one.

What this world will look like will be the focus of this series.