Originally Posted by geala
The USA does not rule the world similar to Rome and it is dangerous to think that USA is "the" dominating economic power. It is one of the dominating economic powers and the one with the political will and ability to throw the power in to achieve certain goals. A dangerous way sometimes btw. There are other mayor powers and will-be powers in the world. Some, like the EU, are politically a bit like a laughing stock. At first glance at least. But beware. The hidden resistance to EU integration and the many efforts to settle the trade wars between USA and EU can tell you something. And China and India and Russia are there too.
The USA and Europe fortunately have in many aspects the same interests; it was not the fear of the mighty US army or economic pressure that forced many European states (except France, Germany and some others) to join the second Iraque war. The feeling that the attack at the World Trade Center was not an attack at the USA but the western culture and economic "empire" is widely spread in Europe and also right in my opinion. The answer to the threat was wrong in the mind of some states, although they see the threat. And the USA could not dare to be angry very long with the deniers, because the USA is not a Rome like empire. You know what Rome did to Rhodes because they missed some Rhodian eagerness in the help of the Romans against the Macedons.
Btw "empire": I think the origin of the word is yet important. The word comes from the Roman empire and many people have such a construction in mind, when they speak from empires. Empire stems not only from imperator, but from imperium which is the name for the power of a administrative official to rule in a certain area. Later it is the term for the Imperium Romanum. After the Roman empire many states tried to copy the great antetype. The Holy Roman Empire is a good example. In state theory the Roman empire never died but remained as a, no, as "the" form of power. Charlemagne had this idea and the Ottonic kings, later emperors in Germany had the same idea. So the German state was named "Imperium Romanum", although it has not much in common with the real Roman empire.
From that time the term empire was used for many different things, so a satisfying definition is no longer possible. It can mean everything and can be used for every time. The Persian Achaemenid state is better called an empire for example than the German empire after 1871, but you can use it now for both terms.
