Recent events have highlighted weaknesses in American society. There is much uncertainty about the future of the struggling empire but a look at other empires in history may shed some light on the matter.
Empires come to grief for a number of reasons but the most common are internal decay and external pressure or invasion. Often we see a combination of the two.
Where these two come together internal weakness allows a foreign aggressor to overthrow an empire that would otherwise probably withstand the attack. Examples are the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire where a civil war was in progress and the Mogul Empire which started to fall apart thus enabling the British to play off the various elements. The Soviet Empire was brought down by internal dysfunction but a factor in this was pressure and a perceived military threat from the USA that pushed the Soviets to military expenditure they could not afford.
Once weaknesses are perceived by restless elements of the empire, danger looms as they see a chance to break free. The Soviets are an example of this as is the Aztec empire. While it was strong it had enemies and unhappy clients who jumped at the chance to join Cortes in overthrowing the Mexica. Without Tlaxcala, the Spaniards would probably not have succeeded.
Sometimes the Empire simply overextends itself financially or territorially. The British Empire fell when it ceased to be the most powerful economic power in the world and foolishly got into WW1 which was a financial disaster. WW2 was the coup de grace. The colonies took the opportunity to demand and get independence. Along with the other European empires, it suffered a massive loss of face when the Japanese swept through Asia. This showed the subject peoples their colonial masters were now weak.
Rome was initially strong militarily and was a role model for others but eventually, it declined militarily as it lost its coherence and became too big to keep together. Coups didn’t help. The barbarians and others saw the signs and Rome fell. The Eastern Empire fell to the Ottomans through military weakness egged on by the split between East and West.
The Chinese Empire is a classic case of internal weakness exacerbated by foreign invasion. It is also a classic case of hubris. China was the centre of the earth (the Middle Kingdom) and had nothing to learn from barbarians. It was thus overtaken technologically and militarily by others whose invasions succeeded because of China’s overconfidence in its own superiority. The new Chinese Empire claims to have learned from this error and so far is doing well.
So what does all this tell us about the American Empire? It began by conquering the neighbouring native American nations including those previously conquered by France and Spain. The Monroe Doctrine proclaimed hegemony over Latin America which was put into practice by propping up governments that suited US interests and overthrowing those that did not. Later it got involved in China. In 1898 the US invaded the Philippine Republic and after a brutal war turned it into an American colony. Like China, the USSR, Spain, Rome and most other empires it sought to impose its values and institutions on others and after WW2 it became involved in an ideological and strategic contest with the USSR. None of this was unusual as empires go.
Today we could well be seeing the beginning of the decline and fall of the American empire. A future Gibbon may still be writing the first books but much is uncertain. Domestic unrest is a weakness which is losing soft power and respect. It is still strong militarily but has lost every war since WW2 except Grenada. It is engaged in a contest with China in some ways like that with the USSR but in other ways different. Americans rightly see China as a threat to their supremacy and there are shades of the Roman Senator’s famous Cartago delenda est but China looks like a tougher nut to crack than Carthage. However, China is a threat because it is a rival empire. If both were willing to live and let live instead of insisting on being number one then a modus vivendi should be possible. However, Biden has made it clear that he wants to restore American leadership of the world which suggests that he shares the American exceptionalist ideology and there is a widespread view in the US that China is an enemy which must be defeated while Xi has made it equally clear that “China has stood up”. This does not bode well for the future.
The recent protest, sedition, insurrection or whatever you want to call it has raised questions rather than answered any. It was inspired by Trump and the crowd looks like those who followed Hitler, Mussolini or the Beatles. Mob psychology is not my field but this seems to have a lot to do with loyalty to a cult figure. The question is how widespread is this view?
Clearly, there are a lot of unhappy Americans out there as the votes showed but are they a monolithic mob of Trump devotees or a mixed bunch? After all, only a minority of unhappy Americans were involved in the attack on the Capitol. And more importantly, will this event unify Americans as some claim or widen the existing gaps? Only time will tell but the underlying causes of discontent will make the task of Sisyphus look easy. Trump certainly exacerbated existing problems but he did not create them and they will not go away just because he does – if he does!
Today, the USA faces internal dissension and a powerful opponent in China. Trump has been a disaster in foreign affairs but how different will Biden be? Like Ming China, Americans see themselves as teaching and leading others rather than learning from or and working with others as equals. A series of military defeats, the election of a Caligula-like president and systemic internal weaknesses may well make it much harder to get international support. Europeans have been distancing themselves at least from Trump. Dyed in the wool camp followers like Australia will probably be the last to go but even here there have been rumblings.
Speculation on the future can be informed or uninformed but at present, it remains inevitably speculative.
Cavan Hogue is a former diplomat who has worked in Asia, Europe and the Americas as well as at the UN. He was Australian Ambassador to USSR and Russia, dually accredited to Ukraine. He also worked at ANU and Macquarie universities.
Comments
41 responses to “Empires come and go. Has the decline of the American empire begun?”
On “the mob”. It’s a bit of a liberty to equate Beatlemania with the fascist followers of Adolph and Benito. I don’t think John Lennon really thought they were the second coming when he made the (ironic) comment about being more popular than Jesus.
People are easily motivated by fear. Germans were motivated by the avowed desire of the USSR to conquer the world for Communism, but imposed socialism in the meantime.
Thanks Cavan, a most important question.
I would argue that the decline of the US started many years, even decades, ago. The key evidence for this is the decline of the middle class, mounting debt and money printing. Or to paraphrase Joseph Tainter, ‘declining marginal returns on the investment in empire’.
Decline became obvious/accelerated in 2014/15 after Putin said no to NATO expansion in Ukraine and intervened in Syria. The US could do little about this other than hyperventilate and issue sanctions, which were remarkably ineffective.
Since then there have been numerous data points highlighting the decline of the imperial system. The inability to stop Nord Stream II, the inability to stop Turkey purchasing S-400s from Russia and Iran’s precision missile strike on US military bases in Iraq being just a few.
The domestic situation of the US is another example. For as long as the US remains an oligarchy it is unlikely to resolve its internal difficulties in an adaptive manner. Inequality is a root cause of the US’ domestic troubles. I suspect these difficulties will only get worse, potentially much worse, for the foreseeable future.
Australia’s strategic reliance on the US seems rather foolhardy at this point in time!
Agreed. Biden can’t reverse the US decline, which is historical. Social collapse is a possibility, but there is no guarantee it would meaningfully limit the empire’s war machine anyway.
China does not stand alone; it has a “strategic partnership” with the Russian Federation. Neutrality agreements with Japan and India might help Russia and China prevent war, but any such agreements seem very remote possibilities. Europe is talking out of both sides of its mouth, NATO is preparing to expand its operations beyond Europe, and Biden’s team is bent on severing any positive relations between Iran and China.
If these conditions continue to intensify, a comprehensive Russia-China economic and military alliance – unassailable by the combined West, and which could efficiently control Japan and India – will become increasingly important for preventing world war.
Agreed Warren. Great summary.
Simple questions. How is PRC an “empire”? How is China a rival empire? It has no colonies, no alliances and no military conquest. There are a broad range of definitions but we can accept two criteria:
1. a territorial empire of direct conquest and control with force or
2 a coercive, empire of indirect conquest and control with power.
The US meets 1 and 2. Can the author explain or anyone how the PRC meets any of the two criteria? The work experience kids from ASPI that post here incessantly about B&R, Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang need not apply. This is a conversation for adults.
“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.”
Edmund Burke
It has 100 languages. It is unlike the USA which has only two, English and Spanish. It has many, but more than 100, different cultures and ethnicities. It has many religions, all of them, except perhaps Shinto, Sikhism and Ba’hai?
Ad hominem attack comparing commenters to children invariably reflect on the aggressor.
It was a completely valid expression for the immature and ignorant comments posted by the ASPI sledgers who appear in the commentary here from time to time.
“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of
intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
―Edmund Burke
The USA like China, has given away a most powerful weapon: the tsuanmi bombs. Place three over clathrates, aimed at the city of your choice and retire, further than the USSN San Francisco.
Most US cities are on the coasts, even Chicago may be vulnerable.
I foresee the collapse of the US “empire” and a nasty response….
China was attacked because it had taken the very civilized approach of securing all inventions that would kill many in warfare into the *Index, recording all the details, but forbidding their manufacture and use.
Da Vinci was just a talented draughtsman when the trade ships reached Europe in the 15th Century. Unfortunately they carried an *Index, not the original title.
Europe tore itself apart in bloody wars, using gunpowder and a few other inventions, making DaVinci a fortifications expert who fled to france, the richest country at the time.
So a weak China that had blood debt to repay.
Perhaps we can now call it quits and love one another?
China was attacked because it had taken the very civilized approach of securing all inventions that would kill many in warfare into the *Index, recording all the details, but forbidding their manufacture and use.
Da Vinci was just a talented draughtsman when the trade ships reached Europe in the 15th Century. Unfortunately they carried an *Index, not the original title.
Europe tore itself apart in bloody wars, using gunpowder and a few other inventions, making DaVinci a fortifications expert who fled to france, the richest country at the time.
So a weak China that had blood debt to repay.
Perhaps we can now call it quits and love one another?
Those families who own most of nations and empires will always go too far, ruining their chosen lair. Then they move on. Money laundering is vital to this.
We are seeing more of this from China than from USA.
“The Chinese Empire is a classic case of internal weakness exacerbated by foreign invasion. It is also a classic case of hubris. China was the centre of the earth (the Middle Kingdom) and had nothing to learn from barbarians.”
This assumption is completely driven by Western point of view and is erroneous.
China was named the “middle kingdom” more accurately the “centre kingdom” or Zhōngguó 中国 (Mandarin) because it was simply how things were – they lived there, its the point of origin. Zhōng 中 means the centre.
It is a common practice to consider where you live to be at the centre of everything, especially in the past when means of travel for most people were limited. Every human being is at the centre of everything from their own perspective. Its also very typical of cultures in the far east to have had little interest in the external world beyond their country. Apart from a very short period of ocean travel and discovery under Zheng He, China’s interest in the world not counting trade on the silk road was limited. It was a huge country, why did it need to go elsewhere?
The difference between East and West is characterised as the East being more internalised as people, more meditative, while the West has always held far more interest into outward action and extrovert behaviour. The West even gave a name to the difference it perceived in the Asian character which it called “quietism”. While the West was exploring the outer world, the East was exploring the inner world.
Japan was very similar in that originally it had no great interest in the outer world and it was actually forced open to trade through the gunship diplomacy actions of commodore Perry of the US Navy in the early 1850s. He parked his boats in the bay near Edo (now Tokyo) and fired a volley of cannon shot which terrified the Japanese – this with a threat that if they did not open up to trade they would know what was coming to them. It’s a bit like Japan’s original source of humiliation as well, and the story is taught to Japanese school students in greater detail even today than Pearl Harbor in textbooks. In fact the original actions of the US in forcing trade on Japan were never forgotten and also fuelled some of the later nationalist animosity that brought about the Pearl Harbor attack.
Chinese also call noon or midday zhōngwŭ, literally the centre or middle of the day. Zhōng is a very commonly used word, just like we use ‘centre’ for many purposes.
It may surprise you to know that the ancient Greeks also called Delphi, where the highly respected oracle abided, the ‘centre of the world’. That had nothing to do with hubris, and it is pretty much in the middle of Greek mainland.We also call places where we shop ‘shopping centres’. We call places where we meet ‘centres’, and the middle of Australia the ‘Red Centre’. Any hubris there?
As far as the original trade with China was concerned, and British interest, the facts are that the Emperor at the time did live in a very advanced culture that produced an abundance of pretty extraordinary products, as China still does. As it was an internally focussed country, it did not think it needed anything because it really had what it needed. When the Emperor looked at all of things the British brought to interest him he was not interested, those things were alien to his culture. He was not au fait either with British colonial capitalism. In fact the Emperor showed far more interest in a young cabin boy who had learnt some Chinese on his way to the country – he was very impressed and chatted with him instead. The point is the British wanted to force trade on China because they needed the tea and ceramics and every other extraordinary product the Chinese made. British exceptionalism made them believe god was even on their side in forcing world trade. And it was cheap. Since trade was carried out using silver, that led to an imbalance where the metal was only flowing in China’s direction. To remedy this the British cooked up a masterful (in their opinion) solution involving two of their imperialist conquest nations: using Indians in Bengal to grow very high quality opium, and flogging it off to the Chinese in one of the biggest and longest state-based drug smuggling operations in world history.
It is not easy to analyse a comment and call it erroneous.
Or is it?
It becomes a lot easier when you know that the comment is wrong out of your experience and objective knowledge of fact.
It’s like the green light that tells you that you can walk across the road, or a red light that says you can’t. It is obvious.
It may interest people to know that “Zhong Guo” was already what the Chinese called themselves back in Western Zhou dynasty circa 1000 BC. It really had nothing to do with hubris but just a way to refer to “those of us who live together” and “those of them on the outside who don’t live with us”. “Zhong” also means “inside” or “inner” and the original character is a picture of an area between two flags). Various States that came after the Western Zhou also claimed to be “Zhong Guo”. Chinese empires are usually referred to as dynasties by themselves, but they will refer to themselves as “Zhong Guo” in foreign policy.
Thank you Ewen for a most welcome addition. I did not know that.
No George, thank you – and I am confidence I am speaking on behalf of many more people of Chinese heritage than just myself here – for your persistence in exposing the half-truths and smearing of all things Chinese in Western media.
Please feel free to add to my comments whenever you have the inclination. I initially started writing comments here on the subject of China because I felt many of the charges directed at China and Chinese people were fuelled with complete bias and a great deal of ignorance. In recent times it has been for very unfair politically driven purposes but there has long been a racist undercurrent of an unknown percentage of individuals pushing views that debase and vilify Chinese people in Australia and elsewhere.
To me China has a great wealth of experience and acquired wisdom that we could learn much from, and we already have – it is just that it is rarely acknowledged. I guess I fit the definition of someone who seeks to mediate between both Australian and Chinese views, and a large part of that is dispelling half-truths and false opinions. Comments like yours I value as a welcome and touching reward, it means a great deal to me, and that I may at liberty to say that I have achieved some of my aims. I’m also very much aware how current media and government opinions are making it difficult for Chinese people. They face the animosity, and there have been some pretty shocking racist attacks.
I am not of Chinese ancestry, but have studied much on China and its remarkable people and culture, and that is why bias and pro-Western interpretations stand out to me like beacons. As an Australian, I want my country to do better, and stop using racism as a political tool. I don’t want it to diminish the worth of other Australians of non-Anglo-Saxon heritage for some unfair advantage. I also don’t want Australians blindly following the current US geopolitical aims, especially if it could result through sloppy rhetoric and careless actions (founded on ignorance and misunderstanding) into another tragedy of warfare.
Another interesting & informative post George. Thanks. On your point of people’s not wanting anything particular from outside their world. My readings about the the colonisation of Aboriginal Australia tells me that First Nations people were not particularly interested in the gifts offered by the invadors as they generally had no intrinsic value to them & really just wanted these weird, dangerous, destructive people to go away. Their word was explicable, logical & real. It provided everything they needed. Life & belonging. They did not need more.
Those who did need more carried out the invasion using prisoners, selected for their admirable qualities, not because they were cutthroats and rapists.
Except for the soldiers sent to guard them, perhaps?
British society was about capitalism and the individual, indigenous Australian society was about sharing and community.
George, you are indeed very well versed in your history. When the West and Japan forced open the doors of China to trade, apart from opium, the country was flooded with manufactured goods. That effectively destroyed the artisanal production of implements and other needs. It created massive unemployment and many people suffered. When people lose their social niche, they take to drugs, opium.
Today, the trend seems to be reversed but with China learning the game and playing it by international rules, that is, benignly. The US bought Chinese products on their own volition. I fact they bought more than they could afford to indulge themselves. When they found that the balance of trade was in China’s favour, they started accusing China of cheating and added human rights abuses which has little connection with trade other than manufactured accusations. The final verdict is that “they”, the Chinese, cannot be allowed to win.
Thank you again Teow Loon Ti.
And thank you for adding to my comments as well. I am very much enjoying my interaction with people of Chinese ancestry here, and many others of other ancestries who fully perceive the motivations behind this newest attack on China and its people, as we all do. It is very rewarding. I’m also ever thankful to John Menadue for providing the means to do it and the remarkable efforts of both John and his wife in their hard work and commitment to keep it going.
It is good that this site has become a venue for correcting some of the false views by directing the focus on an analysis of history. And as the years progress we know far more than in former times. I would encourage anyone of Chinese ancestry to add to any of my comments or correct me as they see fit; it is only they that have the direct experience and knowledge of what it means to be Chinese. I’m no expert, I am a learner, and I am not Chinese. To be the expert would mean I have nothing to learn, and that is a very dangerous position to be in. Yet I do have some acquired knowledge on China, and some tools of argument learned through philosophy studies which I find useful in dispelling much of the false information that gets peddled.
I am hoping that the quality of debate becomes more respectful and less ad hominem. I hope that more people come here with open minds, willing to debate fairly and not be fuelled by prejudice where no real discussion can take place.
I was not able to respond yesterday because I visited “Lambing Flat” now known as Young in NSW. It was made infamous by the Lambing flat riots where many Chinese people suffered intolerably during the Gold Rush – some murdered. It is a place of healing now, and the best place to experience that is in the Chinese Gardens where there is calm and peace, waterlilies, some very beautiful boulders that project from the pond waters. There is also a beautiful statue of a horse in full flight, a copy made in China from the original displayed in the Forbidden City. Significant grants have been given to the town to improve the garden.
It is one of the only places in Australia that I know of, where the Chinese and Australian flags fly together, and at close proximity to each other.
George, I too can’t thank John Menadue and his team enough for giving us a voice. There can be no greater gift to a democracy than to enable who love humanity as a whole and who want people to be left alone to live their lives peacefully to be heard. And thank you too George for your kind words.
George,
I think you miss the point. Of course others see themselves as the centre of the world including small remote tribes far from everywhere else and China is far from being the only place to be brought down by hubris. In the Ming Dynasty there was a flourishing development of science and technology which included the voyages of Admiral Zheng He who might well have rounded the cape of Africa before the Portuguese did in the other direction. However, the conservative faction at court won the bureaucratic battle and established the view that China did not need to change anything so instead of Chinese sailing to Europe the Europeans sailed to China some time later. Again, refusal to accept that barbarians are stronger than you is not uniquely Chinese but it weakened China to the point where Europeans could do to China what they could not have done a couple of centuries ago. European technology which was well behind China during the Ming gradually improved whereas Chinese military and some other technology remained static. I give other examples. As for your last paragraph, China tried to stop the British drug pushers but was unable to do so because British naval technology was better than theirs. China lost the Opium Wars for the same reason and so on to the humiliation.
Ozymandias says it all!
Cavan
“If both were willing to live and let live instead of insisting on being number one then a modus vivendi should be possible.” China’s key foreign policy is to “live and let live”: non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. When it demands to be left to live its own way, the West accuses it of aggression.
China is accused of interfering in the West when anybody in the West dares to observe, “China is doing better than we are in some ways. Maybe we could learn something from them.” China has been smart enough to learn natural science from us. We are too dumb to learn one bit of the science of government from them. When it comes to learning anything new about the science of government, even in the face of manifest failure, we are dogmatic fools.
China doubled in size in the 1960s.
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
―
Edmund Burke
While I agree there are many signs of a chaotic period in the US that could announce the end and disintegration of a strong power, lets also remember that leaders like Nero and Caligula, pretty crazy leaders in the Trump style that announced a period of decadence and madness as rulers, it was still several hundred years before Rome and its Empire finally fell apart.
If they were as they are portrayed. Heinsohn et al has injected much doubt about the past.
And do not forget the fabulous “Vanished Kingdoms” by Norman Davies, 2011, a huge list of Empires, Federations, Kingdoms that have come and gone from the Three Burgundies to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, many “states” that thought they would last forever have come and gone.
The people who lived in them have many descendants.
Those who owned them, probably prospered and moved on.
Countries, nations, empires are really just symbols
The impending crash of the US reminds me of the unhappy ending of the ‘golden century of Spain”.
The Philippines is the lightning rod of both in Asia.
“Flogging it off to the Chinese” ?? Have you no knowledge of the Opium Wars? The stuff was not “flogged off”, it was rammed down Chinese throats with cannon and bayonets in two of the most evil wars of aggression in British military history (and that is saying something). The fact that the British found more than a few traitorous collaborators in China in the appalling business does not excuse them. Retribution awaits them.
Here look at just some of my comments here: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/hong-kongs-future-now-lies-with-china/
Check out the one just under Lai Fong Yap’s comment.
I’ve have already written extensively about the injustice of the Opium Wars in many of my comments, even as recently as yesterday.
I also say:
“flogging it off to the Chinese in one of the biggest and longest state-based drug smuggling operations in world history.”
Perhaps you could give me the respect of reading more carefully what I actually write and see that my entire comment supports the premise that China was unfairly treated not only by forced illegal opium trade, but also by Western interpretations on why it did not want to trade, and why the country is named by the Chinese the way it is.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/flog
“If someone tries to flog something, they try to sell it.”
Which is exactly what the British did to address the silver imbalance.
Brexit is but a small taste!