FALL: AMERICA’S EMPIRE IN DECLINE

Empires come and Empires go. Most of them, strange as it may seem, have destroyed themselves in various ways. Some through war, some through the historic cycle of long term empire, some through managed decline as a matter of policy, some a combination of all of these and other factors.

All empires however are formed from two key elements: military power and a domination of available world trade. One doesn’t last without the other, they are absolutely integral to the success of any empire, no matter how it operates.

The Roman Empire was, in many ways the world. It was, other than the Persians to its far east, the only unified political organism, held together by an exquisite military force and tradition, underpinned by the vast wealth its European, North African and Middle Eastern holdings held together. It was so vast that it could take six months to travel from Hadrian’s Wall in N. England to the farthest reaches of the Empire in what would now be western Iraq.

The British Empire used its extraordinary naval power to dominate the oceans, contain its enemies, guard its trade routes and transport its military. It became the largest territorial empire ever to exist, not reaching its peak until September 1923, 25% of the worlds oceans and land belonged to it, although its demise was already under way, it just didn’t look like it at the time.

Most empires are unaware they have peaked and the fall has already begun.

The United States, at the end of WW2 had done something no other nation had ever done. It had been the key military power in defeating two large empires simultaneously – Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Its home front, economically was both undamaged and booming. Its trade position post war was unprecedented in its dominance.

The key to empire – no matter how that empire is set up is trade. The empire draws in resources, finished goods, agricultural product, from around the empire, and the price for ensuring that process is a powerful military, capable of protecting those inside its empire who trade with it.

The United States, from 1949, decided that it would be at the center of an extraordinary trading empire of democratic states – that it also understood, it had to rebuild in order to make them viable. Once viable, the investment the United States had made would be repaid many times over, not in hard cash, but in supporting the people of America, giving them unprecedented wealth and living standards well above the average anywhere else in the world.

Those free and democratic states were also happy to trade with the country that had both saved and remade them – especially countries like Germany, Japan & Italy that had been ravaged by war. The other European nations in the west like France and the Benelux countries benefited too. Everyone loved and adored America. There was such reverence for Americans in places like Italy that American citizens were virtually immune from legal issues and treated like royalty. The US dollar had vast buying power that made life for an American in Europe so cheap it was almost a free ride.

And the American military, through NATO, helped rebuild the armed forces of those countries to defend themselves. And they purchased vast amounts of American weaponry, which in turn made it feasible for American military manufacturers to make profits, and to massively reduce the cost of weapons for the US military itself. These countries were happy to have America as their ally and they were, like it or not the core of the American Empire – and most of them were happy about it. It was a two way street.

When the Cold War finally reached its most intense moments in the 1980’s those nations bought even more American weapons, allowed nuclear weapons into their lands to dissuade the communist bloc and eventually, America stood over the corpse of the Soviet Union without really firing a shot. It was the triumph of the century. Nazism, Fascism and finally communism was brought to its knees.

The American Empire stood alone as the only super power. And for all the life of it, it really didn’t know what to do with its vast power and its even wider responsibilities.

Its military power was used against Iraq in 1991, but the job was never finished. It started the dismantling of its military power and with it, its ability to ensure its trade. At the same time it began a process of allowing its manufacturing industries to head to the cheapest manufacturing countries – one of those being China, which expanded its manufacturing capacity to meet US and world demand with extraordinary aggressiveness, seemingly unseen.

The shock of 9-11 and the monumental failure of the entire Iraq war and occupation, which to this day still haunts the Middle East, added to the failure in Afghanistan – which everyone except American politicians saw coming, sapped its wealth and made it feel unwelcome and uncertain. A string of ineffectual Presidents, from Clinton to Bush-2 and Obama, who seemed to ride the situation rather than shape it, led to economic collapse in 2008, triggering an already vocal isolationist movement at the core of the Republican Party. Infighting, obstruction and a rapidly accelerating move away from consensus politics led to policy stagnation. Trade was almost outside of American control, its military was hollowed out by wars it had lost or was loosing.

Its allies questioned its policies, and with the first Trump administration, they watched, agog, as America ripped up many of the concepts – even the key pillars of the trans-Atlantic alliance. COVID delayed the breakdown as the world froze up for almost two years. Yet the anti-science and isolationist policies, the blatant racism didn’t sit well with many, in or out of America. Nobody believed after four years of Trump anyone would ever go there again.

In the meantime the Russian attack on Ukraine galvanized and reunited the Americans with their European allies and many others. it wasn’t how it used to be but it felt a lot healthier than it had in a while, especially with Afghanistan out of the picture. Russia was back and it was up to its old tricks, with plenty of new ones.

Yet the Biden administration often failed to lead, it dithered and backslid, compromising Ukraine’s position and slowing what was an unusually rapid European response, never quite going as all-in as it could have to give Ukraine the win it needed.

Even though China had made a rod for its own back, with nearly three years of massive lockdowns, a financial disaster in the housing sector and an inept attempt at restoring its fortunes, America never once took advantage of the situation to really get its trading relationship in order.

Trump in his first term was obsessed with the trade deficit, America imported more than it exported – which is not a bad thing in and of itself. For one that deficit is the core of maintaining empire. You having your trade allies supplying you with goods and services you can’t make yourself, which contributes to your own happiness and your own finances. Those allies spent much of their profits on buying the military equipment you make that is so profitable it allows you to produce some of the best, if the not the best, technological weapons on the planet, that keep you way ahead of your near peers, China and Russia.

Despite an unprecedented economic boom in the US, partly fueled by the war in Ukraine as billions of dollars were spent in the US preparing arms to ship and replacing those that had been, on top of a huge stimulus that saw American manufacturing and services short of labour at times, the next election would be based on nothing but perceived grievances.

Somehow Americans, seemed almost unaware of their power and place in the world. Grievances and perceived sleights, a bizarre feeling that somehow America was being ripped off – when it was enjoying unprecedented trade and energy booms, a renewed appreciation of its position as a great power by its allies and peers, none of it mattered.

Biden lost the election when he decided to stand. Then when it was obvious he could not – in one of the most humiliating scenes ever seen in a presidential debate, he realized he had to stand down and anointed a successor. That’s not how things are done in America, especially in the Democratic Party. It undermined key support in vital demographics who felt they had no choice. Exactly the sort of disenfranchising grievance Trump thrives on.

Post inauguration the new administration has set about kicking down the pillars of the American Empire once and for all. The tariffs have already begun to trash trade between key countries like Canada and Mexico, leaving both of them in the mood that they’re not going to be bullied, and they won’t back down. Never has Canada and the United States been at such loggerheads. Its upturned an old alliance and left Canadians absolutely determined to resist. They’ve gone from America’s best friends to refusing to even travel there, ripping American product off the shelves and promising to fight, in the ludicrous eventuality Trump and his repeated claim the country should become the 51st State are attempted. To trash an age old alliance in such a way with some of the kindest people on planet Earth seems almost beyond grotesque.

Then came Ukraine. It’s almost irrelevant as to why the President and his Veep behaved as they did. They just did. The fact they did, the way that they did it, the follow up afterwards of blocking aid, the fact that Ukraine had almost been coerced into handing over a minerals deal so bad, one commentator described it as ‘worse than Germany’s reparations to the allies after WW1. And Germany lost.’

Suddenly everyone of America’s allies in NATO, who had long suspected that the new regime would trample over the diplomatic norms of old, realized, in that one eye opening moment, America cannot be trusted.

Not only has it initiated a trade war, given notice that it will no longer take part in NATO exercises of any kind, implied that it no longer supports NATO Article 5 in so many ways that even when Trump said he did, nobody believed him. America has kicked the pillars of its empire out from under it.

It has broken friendships, ignored its allies, brought into doubt its most solemn obligations, weekend its own military alliance, threatened its neighbors, Canada and Mexico, demanded Greenland be handed to America and that Panama hand back the entire canal to stop the Chinese using it. And for good measure its hung Ukraine out to dry and cozied up to the Russians as if the war never happened.

Its happened at such speed, has been so detrimental to the way the American Empire operated that it has almost ceased to exist in a matter of days. Everyone suddenly loathes American product, politics and intentions, leaving those dependent on the relationship with the US stunned and worried if they can ever trust America again.

The Swiss government for example, now its been revealed that the US has a kill switch to turn off almost any weapons system it makes remotely, is thinking of ending its plan to buy F-35’s. Many others are asking questions about if buying US made weapons is a risk – what now if there’s no trust?

Trade based on the idiotic proposal that America is being ‘ripped off’ by its allies is ludicrous. BMW’s and Mercedes are expensive cars without tariffs, and American want to buy them because the US can’t make a decent car to save its life that a European would buy, with very few exceptions. The American food industry is far from being wholesome or capable of producing European standards on vast numbers of products. People choose to buy these products because they’re better, not cheaper. With Chinese product they buy because its cheaper and no worse than what might be made domestically, but probably isn’t any more.

Tariffs are there to protect domestic industry from predators, but when you don’t have that industry in the first place it’s also unlikely to stimulate manufacturing. The world is too interlinked to have tariffs work for anyone. When Trump and his administration don’t even really underhand what tariffs are – they think they’re a tax on a foreign government – is it any wonder that economic chaos follows?

America in a matter of weeks has betrayed its friend and ally, shown its unreliable as a partner and that it cannot be trusted. Its upended the world order that it created for its own benefit and in the process destroyed decades of trust and goodwill, along with its moral leadership.

None of that is coming back any time soon, most likely never. There has not been in 80 years such a fundamental re-framing of the world order. Europe is on the rise and recognizes it must take upon itself the challenge to be relevant. And it knows now it will have to do it without America.

Trump destroyed the world order his country established so deliberately and carefully after WW2, for what, nobody knows.

Greenland is a fine example, with Canada. Both are in NATO, both are already in military subservience to the US. Both host US bases and detection equipment. There was nothing either would not have done if asked nicely. Now they hate the country they once admired. Is there any more stupid, more ridiculous a situation than a self imposed own goal like this?

Everyone sees it, America’s friends, her allies. Most certainly her enemies are lapping it up. I doubt any of them can believe their luck.

RIP Pax Americana. It was good while it lasted.

The Analyst

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