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Tuesday, February 22, 2005

The Collapse of Empire

I mused about it earlier. Now I find an article by Kirkpatrick Sale on Counterpunch describing the four ways in which empires collapse, and how the American empire appears to be on schedule in at least three of the four:
  1. Environmental degradation
  2. Economic meltdown
  3. Military overstretch
  4. Domestic dissent and upheaval
On the last point, Sale seems to agree with me on the chances for number four leading the way:
It's hard to believe that the great mass of the American public would ever bestir itself to challenge the empire at home until things get much, much worse. It is a public, after all, of which, as a Gallup poll in 2004 found, 61 per cent believe that "religion can answer all or most of today's problems," and according to a Time/CNN poll in 2002 59 per cent believe in the imminent apocalypse foretold in the Book of Revelation and take every threat and disaster as evidence of God's will.
Sale's conclusion?
Those four processes by which empires always eventually fall seem to me to be inescapably operative, in varying degrees, in this latest empire. And I think a combination of several or all of them will bring about its collapse within the next 15 years or so.
As I've said before, the next couple of decades may be horrible, but they won't be boring.