Since Bush, many have predicted that the US is beginning to “fall” in the manner that other “great empires” of the past - namely the Roman and British empires - did.
But what caused those falls? What general trend happened that caused them to “jump the shark” and lose their world dominance?
Two words: Gay Marriage!
Just kidding… 
Rome’s decline was a very slow process that took over a century. It would be hard to pin it on any one thing alone. The rise of Christianity, political corruption, an overextended empire, loss of their cultural identity etc.
The British Empire succumbed to several factors as well. The decline of the importance of sea power alone. The economic, political and social realities of trying to continue squeezing more wealth out of her colonies than they cost to maintain. Not to mention the unbridled resources of the US coming to full fruition in the 20th century and completely overtaking the mother country, as it were.
None of these things, BTW, much applies to present day America. Mostly because, disregarding left-wing lunatics, the United States was not and is not built on empirical rule.
In addition to what Hail Ants said about the Roman Empire, don’t forget the mass migrations of various barbarian groups into the Northern territories of the Roman Empire. And that while the western half of the empire fell in the 5th century AD, the Eastern half kept going for nearly a thousand years more. Of course, the last time I checked, the US hasn’t really had a problem with roaming barbarians, unless you count a bunch of migrant Mexicans looking to pick our lettuce & flip our burgers. 
One large factor in the British Empire’s decline is that the UK’s power base consitited of an island core, and several far flung territories. While most Canadians, Australians, New Zealandlanders, and some South Africans would have been very close culturally to their relatives back in the UK, the rest of the Empire’s subjects (Indians, and all the mass of cultural groups on the subcontinet, a myriad of different African tribes, and so one) didn’t really consider themselves British, and were constantly wanting self-rule & independance. And even the more culturally British wanted to control their own affairs.
After the British wore themselves out fighting other great powers in the two world wars, they were not able to contain these independance movements, especially since some were being funded & backed by another great power (the Soviets) and in the largest British colony, India, Gandhi managed to get a resistance technique (non-violent resistance) going that couldn’t be defeated by conventional arms, without the British public back at home getting queasy.
Of course, the US really doesn’t have this problem - the vast bulk of US territory is in a continous land mass, with most of the population considering themselves as Americans, with most of the rest being one large, sparesly populated hunk, of which most of the population considers themselves American. While the USA has occasionally grabbed bits of far-flung territory, held by people who don’t really want to be Americans, we have either filled up those territories with Americans - think Hawaii, kept them for a little a while, then gave them independence, after we get a reasonably friendly, reasonably democratic government going - think the Philliphines, or what will probably with Iraq, or acted as a reasonably benovelent protectorate, of small islands that would have a difficult time operating as independent countries - think Guam or Puerto Rico.
I think a look at the rise and fall (and rise again, ect cet) of another large, continetal nation, with a reasonably homogeous population like China would be a better example of how to predict when/if the US will “jump the shark.”
Not to mention, while 476 AD is the accepted date for the end of the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire lasted until the 15th century, I think. (Whenever it was that Constantinople fell.) It wasn’t a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ sort of event in either case.
Or what RandomLetters said in his first paragraph. :smack:
Added to that of course, was the fact that Britain was economically exhausted after WW2: that, coupled with a recently elected Labour government with little taste for Empire, meant that there were neither the resources nor the political will to try and hang onto territories which were swiftly “catching” independence - particularly in Asia, where having seen the British handed their hats by the Japanese, the locals were reluctant to see them reinstalled. The British government, faced with these facts, had little choice but to accept with as much good grace as possible.
This contrasts strongly with the French colonies, particularly in South East Asia and North Africa: having survived the war reasonably well economically, and with nationalism still strong, France was anxious to reassert dominance over “their” territories in the face of violent local resistance - leading, ultimately, to bloodbaths in Algeria and the Vietnam war.
Highly recommended reading on this subject is The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers: Economic Change And Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000, by Paul Kennedy: although published in 1988 and thus just prior to the collapse of the Soviet Empire, it’s still an excellent overview of the military, political, and economic forces behind, well, the rise and fall of dominant world powers, from the Habsburgs onwards; it also projects possible causes for the decline of American power.
Another often overlooked factor in the decline of Rome was plague. A huge plague (Justinians’ plague I believe it was called. Named after the emperor it carried away.) swept through the empire and severely reduced manpower. This not only made it that much more difficult to resist invasion, but also cut down on agricultural production. Agriculture was to the empire what oxygen is to you and me. Less food meant that many hungry city dwellers had to leave town and become field workers. Cities emptied out and Europe reverted to an almost completely agricultural society.
Good analysis here. The two empires were totally different: the Roman Empire ame about because of the desire of the Roman emperors for personal wealth-the roman army could only be sustained by continuous conquest. That is why that once it stopped expanding, it began to shrink-it was too large to be defended from barbarian invasion.
The British Empire was more of a commercial enterprise-colonies such as India, were acquired because private companies (like the East India Company) wanted them (South Africa, Rhodisia, and Nigeria were acquired in this way as well). The 1800’s were a great time for empire building-you could take over a huge amount of land in Asia/Africa, with a handful of troops (with machine guns). The British were pragmatic-they kept their colonies as long as they were commercially viable, and the income from them exceeded the expense of holding them. Were the Britsh good colonizers? I don’t think they ever sent many settlers to most of their colonies (the Americas excepted). As I say, the colonies were for natural resources (iron ore, rubber, oil, tea, etc., not for colonization). What i find interesting: great Britain became immensely wealthy from its empire-yet the two world wars consumed just about ALL of the wealth built up in the previous 3 centuries of the empire!
If you’re looking for a common theme, both empires suffered from over-extension. Both the British and Roman Empires kept growing and, as a result, kept aquiring new areas which required a commitment of resources. But the core area of their empires were not growing at the same rate as the frontier; the populations of England and the Latin Provinces were relatively stable. The result was that both Empires found themselves having to commit a growing proportion of the resources from these areas to address a growing set of needs.
Arguably, there is a parallel with the United States. Our core area is the US itself. But in the last hundred years, our commitments have been growing. In 1904, we were only concerned about Central America, the Caribbean, and the Philipines. Now we’re committing troops to Europe, Korea, Japan, the Pacific, and Central Asia.
Of course, in 1904, the US had a population of only ~80 million. Today it is close to 300 million, and the economy is larger by an much greater margin.
Well, there was that continent-wide wave of violence financed partially with slave labor to exterminate or overtake the aboriginal inhabitants of the place, along with a series of expansions of territory. And there is the global military presence, with bases in more countries than not. And we do have some outright far-flung dependencies. There’s that nagging military and economic dominance of large parts of the world (continued with the IMF/World Bank system and bolstered by trade agreements), with tendencies to overthrow governments which threaten our interests.
I think that after the eventual decline of the US, which judging from the Jerry Springer show and so forth is just around the bend, the average historian here and abroad, unencumbered by patriotic fervor, will look at this as a new kind of empire.
I say “new kind” because we’ve essentially adopted a sophisticated system of running mock-colonies mindful of ‘externalizing’ the costs associated with providing for the welfare of the people living in them. It’s one thing to bump off the Guatemalan government (picking one example) when it takes an independent tack, but quite another to finance the Guatemalan budget and take responsiblity for the place. Thus we still get the cheap mangos and bananas, without the mess of providing healthcare and stable government. “Why, it’s win-win!” :rolleyes: If anything keeps Pax Americana rolling, it’s the crucial “lack of formal responsibility for the economically dominated and, when necessary, militarily threatened populations” thing we have going. We appear to have learned these lessons about cost/benefit analysis of taking colonies from the Bristish and Romans quite well. [To this day, for example, it appears that densely-populated eastern states raise a higher proportion of taxes per capita than sparsely populated western ones, while expenditure per capita is the reverse. Clearly that’s not sustainable if you keep expanding, and we’re lucky the Pacific Ocean slowed us down for a bit.]
Who says no one ever learns from history?
This is the same charming approach to the social order used by our corporate leaders at home (profit from the public infrastructure, “externalize” responsibility for maintaining it), with the same results on the domestic front on a less drastic scale.
Probably still the most highly regarded work on the history of the Roman Empire has to be Gibbon’s “Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire,” wherein he attributed Romes fall to five fatal characterisics: 1. A mounting love of show and luxury; 2. A widening gap between the very rich and very poor; 3. an obsession with sex; 4. Freakishness in the Arts, masquerading as originality; 5. An increased desire to live off the state.
Durant, in the “Age of Faith,” added to this list: draconian taxes, Christianity (i.e., the Roman Catholic variety), and the massive influx of emigres.
I think that Gibbon was wrong…Rome fell because its antiquated social structure wasn’t up to the job of maintaining a vast empire. take taxation: the Roman emperors had no means of raising money, excepet for inflation (debasing the currency), and conquest (seizing the wealth of captive nations). When conquest became impossible, their money dried up…and so the resorted to inflation, which ruined them. Second, as the cost of maintaining the army soared, fewer romans wanted to be soldiers…so they resorted to hiring mercenaries (many who turned against the empire).
I think its a miracle that Rome lasted as long as it did! Oh, and Roman was technoically stagnant-no invention orinnovations of any kind-just reliance upon slavery.
So, to repeat my argument: Rome could survive as long as it could go on expanding-when expansion halted, it began to fall apart. By about 575 AD, the army was almost completely filled with mecenary soldiers, and the whole thing collapsed.
If Gibbon and Durant are right, then we are DOOMED!
We have 7 of the 8 right now. The only thing we are missing is the taxes.