How do we determine what makes those countries, countries? On what timeline are we talking? What is the defining criteria that absolves enlightened Sweden of responsibility for the Viking conquests?
Heck…Sweden was a major player even into the the 1600’s. Ever heard of Gustav Adolphus??
-XT
Yes. I’m trying to establish a timeline here. Does it occur before Gustav Adolphus or after? Is Sweden responsible for all the actions since Adolphus?
At a guess MrDibble means modern nations who are basically not world powers. All his examples are (today) relatively minor and weak nations. Canada is interesting though since it’s a pretty close ally to the US and the UK. Certainly on it’s own it’s a fairly mild and innocuous nation…but it has really bad friends. The ‘scandinavian countries’ of course are part of a larger economic and quasi-military group in the EU, which I’m guessing has done a few things that would discount them from Dibble’s list (say, Bosnia, as an example).
-XT
Personally, I draw the cut-off at 22 January 1901. Arbitrary and distinctly Anglocentric, but it’s as reasonable as any other.
Ok, and why do you choose that date particularly? In otherwords what effect does the death of Queen Victoria have on world politics. Do you think that the age of empires ended there?
No, I view involvement in the Bosnia War as a net positive.
No, the age of empires is ongoing, if greatly reduced. But there was a gradual difference in attitude between the start of the 19th and end of the 20th centuries. I could as easily set it at midnight, 1 Jan 1900. Or 28 June 1919. Like I said, it’s arbitrary. I just like the Victorian Era as a marker. Like I said, it’s Anglophilic, but hardly a controversial label.
The American “Quasi-Empire” is indeed crumbling, as the enormous costs of maintaining the armed forces bankrupts the USA.As with the British, the empire is good for the ruling classes, but disastrous for the middle and lower classes, who bear all of the burden(their kids do the fighting and dying). The next blow will be the abandonment of the dollar(as the world currency). This will end the ability of the US Navy to project power abroad. I see this as a positive thing…we will return to the pre-WWII world, where there are a multitude of regional powers. and the USA taxpayers will see a big benefit-we can fix our roads and crumbling infrastructure, and (maybe) revive Detroit. We will also not get dragged into foreign wars, as we have done, since the end of WWII.
I understand that it’s arbitrary, but it’s obviously not COMPLETELY arbitrary as you are choosing your other possible examples as correlating to around World War I. So what happened in the early twentieth century that changed the nature of Empires?
And there are massive wars between regional powers who wish to be THE dominant regional power.
Can’t wait! 
Lots of different things - starting with the end of slavery in the British Empire (1 August 1834), the American entry into the empire game post-Civil-War (both the settlement of the West and that spat with Spain), as well as proletariat revolutions in the heart of Empire. Culminating in WWI and the Russian Revolution. Exciting times all round.
Yeah…I’m thinking (based on history) that the pre-WWII era of regional powers wasn’t exactly a golden age of beer and skittles. There were all those nasty conflict thingies…
I’m curious though:
How will the abandonment of the dollar lead to the end of the ability of the Navy to project power?
How do you figure that the ‘empire’ is ‘disastrous’ for the middle classes exactly? Not that I accept that it’s ‘disastrous’ for even the lower classes, but I can at least see where a case could be made that it sucks for them (though relative to what exactly? To earlier times? When has it NOT sucked to be in the lower classes exactly??). But I’m not seeing how the levels of prosperity world wide since WWII has been a disaster for the middle classes. Could you expand on that a bit? Start off by defining exactly what ‘lower’ ‘middle’ and ‘ruling’ classes are if you would so I can get an idea of the scope of the disaster.
-XT
I am confused about where you stand on the issue. Do you think the US is an Empire?
Why would people holding alot of the US currency (notably China) abandon the currency they’ve horded and put alot of value on? If they abandoned it, it’s worthless paper.
Wrong.
Won’t happen anytime soon, but look-up special drawing rights (SDRs).
And the Thorvald Stoltenberg Suggestion, enforced by the US IIRC, would only shoot Norway in the foot. Sweden and Denmark escaped without too much backlash from that travesty.
(Norwegian here.)
There’s only been 21 billion Dollars worth printed in a 30 yr period. Chinese Dollar holdings are around 1 trillion, and secondary reserves (which the Yuan belongs too) haven’t been factored into SDR.
Yes.
What would you say are the significant differences between the US and the Empires of the Colonial era?