Quo Vadis, America?

[King Henry V]

All empires (I consider America to be an Empire. In my book, that's a compliment ) decline and fall. It is a fact of history. To think otherwise is foolish and arrogant (hell, even the Nazis knew that they would evebtually end). America will fall, one day. Whether it will tomorrow or in fifty years time or more, no one can really know. But all things come to an end.

[Rodion Romanovich]

All empires (I consider America to be an Empire. In my book, that's a compliment ) decline and fall. It is a fact of history. To think otherwise is foolish and arrogant (hell, even the Nazis knew that they would evebtually end). America will fall, one day. Whether it will tomorrow or in fifty years time or more, no one can really know. But all things come to an end.

Yes, but the fall of an empire can be affected in many ways by the actions of that empire. For example the nazi "empire" fell quickly because they went around trying to start wars with everyone. Fighting both USSR and the USA wasn't exactly a too bright decision. Although the involvement of the USA wasn't easy for them to avoid, their removal of all safety margins for being able to handle neutrals joining the war on their opposing side by attacking the USSR and leaving Britian alone to regroup the RAF could probably even then have been possible to predict would lead to defeat.

On the other hand you can postpone a horrible fall like the romans by divide et impera followed by economical and military buildup and fortification, but the humiliation over divide et impera and the discrimination called for a horrible revenge once it came.

Other empires just degrade slowly, became a smaller state that's no longer an empire but at least a country, and do so without suffering greatly in the process.

Saying that these things are fully random is IMO foolish and arrogant, to use your own expression. On the other hand I in no way imply that there's no randomness in it, as that would be equally foolish and arrogant. Many empires of fairly nice guys have been destroyed because they were ignorant and thought they wouldn't be subject to invasion from the outside. But at least it's better to remove as many causes as possible for a future fall, if you want an empire to last.

One of America's outstanding qualities is it's ability to reinvent itself, to rejuvenate itself. It has had difficult times before. But they always bounce back up, with renewed spirit and vigour. It never seems to completely lose that feeling of innocent optimism.

On a side note, that very phrase was commonly uttered in the roman empire during the century before it's fall.

To sum it up: America has carried out far from sound politics since ww2, but has in no way gone so far that it can't repair itself if it acts quickly. On the other hand, there seems to be little desire for acting quickly to repair the damages, and the new generation of leaders in the USA are becoming more and more trigger happy and war-mongering, even threatening to thrust a wedge between Europe and the USA, which would be fatal at a time where many other parts of the world are rising in economical and military power. Finally it's a dangerous attitude that it'll fix itself without any active action. More activity is needed to allow for further implementation of a functional democratic system and conscription in the USA, two factors which would remove the irrational and uncontrolled war-mongering which creates new enemies against the USA, something that in the long term can only be disastrous. The attitude that it'll fix itself, in combination with the escalation of horrid developments (which show that active work is needed to turn the trend), might make this list of terrible developments into - unfortunately - the beginning of a much longer list of horrible developments of this kind, rather than just a temporary crisis.

[Watchman]

Know when the British Empire was at its largest ? Between the World Wars. At that point it was also pretty much also at its weakest, although that probably wasn't readily obvious at the time.

And how many in 1989 could tell the Soviets would be gone in two years ?

[Rodion Romanovich]

Know when the British Empire was at its largest ? Between the World Wars. At that point it was also pretty much also at its weakest, although that probably wasn't readily obvious at the time.

And how many in 1989 could tell the Soviets would be gone in two years ?

Large in terms of land ownage is a very poor measurement method for how well an empire resists itäs fall. Usually the turning point comes long before the largest land ownage is achieved. As for the USSR it hasn't gone through a total fall, all that's happened is that it's been transformed from a superpower empire into a very large and still powerful country - all that fell was the communistic regime and the occupation of areas which the USSR had no legal claim to and that had previously easily been possible to predict would keep rebellion for a long time until winning. The "fall" was simply that the new leaders realized how illegal the claims to these territories were and gave up the provinces in a fairly peaceful way instead of fighting repeated rebellions over territoriy that wasn't really that valuable to them.

What is meant by the word fall might vary, and not all "falls" are to worry about. The important thing is that there still, as I said, are very good possibilities of predicting what your actions will lead to if you're prepared to learn from history.

[Sheep]

Well we have definitely lost our luster in the rest of the world, I think. Except perhaps in some parts of Eastern Europe who are still grateful for the end of the Cold War. Maybe there needs to be another giant World War and we can come to the rescue again and everyone will love us again... for awhile.

At least I hope we come to the rescue... I hear Chinese is pretty hard to learn!

[Brenus]

“Except perhaps in some parts of Eastern Europe who are still grateful for the end of the Cold War.” Yeap, the Kazaks are definitively grateful: Now, the political opponents are boiled alive.
*****, I am a ennemy of freedom now...

[ajaxfetish]

Well, America has certainly seen darker days politically, such as the years leading up to the civil war. In that situation the country dealt with a severe internal crisis and had to reinvent itself considerably, but made it through. There were some very strong personalities involved, and some of those wounds still haven't healed, but the country has survived, and grown ever stronger.

As for a falling empire, the nation is still pretty young. I don't expect America to last forever, but I'm still optimistic about the future. We have a government that for all its faults seems to me remarkably similar to Machiavelli's ideal government (I'm not talking about the dictatorship in the Prince), and a flexible constitution that can change with time as necessary. It takes more than a few bad leaders or a few bad years to take a large country under.

And America is first and foremost a land of diversity. There are conservatives (not all of whom are fundamentalist Christian) and there are liberals. There are those who believe in evolution and those who don't. There are those who love their country and those who hate it. And there's everything in between. I don't think any one extreme viewpoint is powerful enough to overcome reality in America, however much it may seem that way to some in the country and the world.

I don't think my nation is always right, but I do believe in its core values and principles (and I think they are fairly unique in the history of the world). I don't think America is invincible, but I do think its strength is far from spent.

Ajax