The Passing Of The American Empire?

“Our planet was once a powerful empire, peaceful and just.” – Transformers

One of the brothers fell down the stairs at the Empire State Building.  I guess that’s Wong on so many levels.

The United States sits at the center of the largest empire the world has ever seen.  Certainly, that empire is now slipping.  But let’s review my first assertion.

Is the United States an empire?  I mean, I was expecting more trumpets and purple robes.

Yes, it is.  The definition of an empire is that it cuts across most fields of human life for vast groups of diverse people, having authority over them, economic control, and cultural influence.

Yes, we’ve got that.  The United States is the inheritor of the mantle of the leading partner in Western Civilization.  Before us was Great Britain, paving the way and making it easier for us.

How can we be sure that we’re still in an empire?

English is spoken everywhere.  Sure, thank the Brits, but the reason they kept speaking it is because it is, by far, the most widely used language in the world.  If I got off a plane in Lanzhou or Lillehammer, I could get by without knowing any local languages and rely entirely on English to get me by.  Sadly, English is no longer spoken in London or Los Angeles, and my Arabic and Spanish could use some work, so I’d be out of luck there.

So, language.

Sign language can be very handy.

What about centralized authority and governance?  Trump is certainly showing that, although the United States pretended to not be the big cheese because France hates that, it really was the big cheese all along.  There’s nothing that Europe can do alone to remotely influence the United States.  Nor can Japan.  In fact, all those hundreds of United States military bases around the world?  Yeah, if a country has one of those, it’s an American client.  At one point we had more than 850 bases in 90 countries.

That’s an empire.

Also, economically.  In Rome you could use the denarius (not Daenerys, who was a hot chick with dragons and not a coin, according to Google©) to buy almost anything you wanted anywhere in the empire.  In the world today, you can use a dollar anywhere they take money and not shrunken heads, and also in some places you can trade dollars for shrunken heads.

I was really effective when I worked for the suicide hotline.  100% of my callers never needed to call back.

Finally, cultural and ideological leadership.  Why did they have a “no kings” protest in Canada, where they have a king?  Why did they have BLM® marches in places in Europe where there are no blacks?  Why did Botswana legalize gayness in 2019?  Why is every little tinpot dictator called a “President” instead of a “Prime Minister”?  I mean, if I were a tinpot dictator I’d call myself, “Sovereign Lord and King John Wilder the First, Flayer of Men, Defender of the Faith, Scourge of India, and Former Costco™ Member”.

You always have to throw in something silly.  I mean, I’ve never even been to Costco®.

Rome proved at the Teutoberg Forest that you don’t need to win every battle to remain an empire.  You can suffer astonishing defeats and go, “Well, that stung,” and keep on with the empire.  I mean, Rome never really went after the Germans with the intent to subjugate them after that battle.  The Germans, however . . .

I once won a large rock, paper, scissors bet.  I made money hand over fist.

But, of course, Rome didn’t face the technological evolution of warfare to the extent we’ve seen in the last 20 years, which greatly levels the playing field between the United States and other countries.  The great advantage the Romans had was their empire to draw men from, and their mastery of transport engineering and logistics which could quickly, as measured in 100A.D., put 10,000 men where their enemy wanted them least.

Spain, however, did experience technical obsolescence in its final humiliation of empire.  In 1898, the United States was a rising power.  The United States wasn’t quite ready to challenge Great Britain in 1898, but it did see Spain.  What did Spain have?  Oh, overseas colonies, colonies that could help the United States grow in the natural direction of the country:  the Pacific.  Sure, it came with a short-term rental of Cuba and a long-term lease on Puerto Rico, but the real prize for the United States was Guam and the Philippines, which still looks like it has one too many of the letter “p” in it.

This addition got the United States a leg up in the last part of aligning non-Western nations and established a firm gateway to Asia and military base for projection of force throughout the Pacific.  We were, in fact, willing to fight an 11-year war against the Filipinos and develop the M1911 in .45ACP to kill drugged out Filipino guerrillas, because a .38 just wasn’t enough.

I digress.

The reason the United States utterly defeated Spain in less than four months was it had an intense technological and logistical lead in every facet of warfare.  The numbers speak for themselves:  4,119 American casualties versus somewhere near 56,500 dead Spanish.  Oh, and the Spanish ships were still sporting cannon over a century old.

My friend’s dad was in a union.  Every story began, “Once upon a time and a half . . . “

Spain was dead as an empire, only waiting for someone to knock it over, take its stuff, and buy something nice for themselves.  That was the United States.  By the time of the Spanish-American War, the United States fighting Spain was the geopolitical version of a velociraptor taking on a kitten.  The only way the kitten survives is if the velociraptor gets all the kibble.

Where are we now?

Are we Rome?  Are we Spain?

Both analogies are suspect, since I don’t trust either Italians or Spaniards.  Too much wine in both countries, and I know how I am after one too many bottles of pinot:  I’m in a lot of economic trouble, personal danger, and I can’t remember my past.

Is the United States, like Rome, just taking another L that won’t matter because we’re still the empire?  No, I think we’re not.  I think we’re beyond the peak of American hegemony, which probably happened on August 15, 1987 while I was throwing a kegger.  Woo!

I had a French duck, but you can’ardly tell.

Is the United States, like Spain, passing?  Again, no, I don’t think so.  We are seeing that some of our main weapons date to designs of nearly 70 years of age.  I’m looking at you, B-52.  The reason is that the bomber is dead to anyone who isn’t living in mud huts, and we realize that.  The B-52 would have been awesome in 1945 but now is just a target.

And we realize that.  I think we’ve realized that with our aircraft carriers as well, and now understand that wars in a time where satellites can provide real-time targeting make big ships filled with thousands of sailors liabilities rather than assets.

Remember this:  no matter what happens, we still irritate the hell out of France.  We’ll always have that.