Comment by wormlord
12 days ago
I think the collapse of the American Empire is no more preventible than the collapse of the British, Spanish, or Roman empires. The issues with the US being the reserve currency has been known for a while now (and was even predicted by Keynes before the Bretton-Woods summit):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma
Any discussion of "bringing back manufacturing" that doesn't mention government spending or social programs to educate and upskill the population is not genuine. The current leadership are fools and ideologs who will only hasten the decline, which might actually be better globally if it lowers emissions. Time will tell I guess.
Empires come and go, that's just a fact of life. The question was whether they'd fall back relatively gracefully like (Western) Europe, now with multiple countries ranking at the top of "World's Happiest Countries", or whether they'll become Russia 2.0 with the biggest guns, richest oligarchs, and the worst quality of life.
It's still far from played out, but right now they're solidly on the road to Russia 2.0, with decades-long trends pointing that way.
The fall of the Soviet Union was arguably more graceful than the two world wars and myriad of colonial worlds it took Europe butt out. Even if you exclude the world wars it probably holds.
The fall of the Soviet Union was anything but graceful. Within months of the dissolution of the USSR Russia had children becoming prostitutes in order to get money for food.
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I think the current Russia-Ukraine war is the delayed end of Soviet Union collapse.
Boris Yeltsin in Aug 1991 called for "Russian Federation to reserve the right to review its borders with any adjacent republic" [0]. Yeltsin did that for a couple of weeks - until Leonid Kravchuk (Ukraine's last Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR and Republic of Ukraine's first president) said he will not support Yeltsin in dissolving USSR. By then the Baltics were already independent countries, but Yeltsin still needed Ukraine's Belarus' and Kazakhstan's support to get rid of Gorbachev.
So Yeltsin acquiesced the borders at that time, four months followed up with the Belovezha Accords and USSR dissolved without a fight a couple of weeks later.
I think what we see today is are some repressed conflicts being fought out in the open.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/27/world/soviet-turmoil-yelt... - free to read with NYT registration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_territory...
Very graceful.
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The end of the empires of Western Europe was not graceful. Not even close.
It may seem that way because the countries within Western Europe that had done the empires are now stable and prosperous but what about the countries of Africa and Asia? The ones who had been part of those same empires of Western Europe?
If you talk to people in these countries of Africa and Asia I think you would find that people there would strongly dispute the idea that the empires of Western Europe ended in any way that could be called "graceful"
Yes I meant now they have reasonably stable anti-fascist institutions, unlike Russia.
This is explicitly referenced in “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System”, written November 2024 by Stephen Miran—current Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers of United States—which outlines the general ideology and strategies behind the current tariff situation.
https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/rese...
I'd believe that article more if Trump hadn't called on congress to eliminate the CHIPS act, or if tariffs+Musk hadn't undermined it, or if republicans were for the Green New Deal, etc. If you're interested in onshoring, the smart thing would be to work on a targeted approach in high-value areas.
It's a really complicated manoeuvre even if you're not actively trying to shoot yourself in the foot. Eg Domestic factors (automation, corporate offshoring decisions, etc) also contributed to manufacturing job loss. A weaker dollar would probably help, but isn't a silver bullet.
The main article for this post goes into this in a lot of detail.
My pet theory is that he was in his 30s when the Plaza Accords happened and they really imprinted on him. If the rising Japanese economy could be brought to heel then so could the Chinese (ignore the fact that Japan was under the US security umbrella). It's no more rational than the fondness you might have for the first car you drove.
The American Empire never existed, because it never could. The US made the explicit decision not to occupy the defeated forces after WWII, save for strategic forces in place to protect the interests of the host countries. The US opened its market (the only market of size left and still the largest consumer bases in the world, by far) with no tariffs.
What the US got in return was cheap goods and a whole lot of debt. What the world got was stability. The US is no longer interested in subsidizing the global order.
The current discussion re: “bringing back manufacturing” is making the mistake that everyone always makes when Trump is involved: taking him at his word. The point isn’t to bring back all manufacturing. The point is to profit off of imports. Some manufacturing will return — whatever is high value added and benefits primary from cheap shipping internally - but nobody thinks that Americans are going to sew t-shirts.
Also, those who are looking for an American decline as comeuppance for being unkind to allies are going to be sorely disappointed. The US has everything it needs to be self sufficient, and no matter how batshit crazy the leadership is, it’s still — still — the safest place to park capital, still the largest consumer market by far (more than twice China), has a stable demographic and a middle class country to its south that brings in lower cost workers as needed. Not to mention being totally energy independent, bordered on two sides by oceans and with more potential port coastline than the rest of the world combined… and also holding the virtually all of the world's supply of high-purity quartz, which is a requirement for semiconductor production.
> The American Empire never existed, because it never could
This theory doesn't really explain what was going on at tremendous expense in Iraq, Afghanistan or even all those years ago in Vietnam.
If there is a decline, I expect it to be in internal security and the transition from high-trust to low-trust society.
It explains it precisely. The United States is a maritime power. It has never had the capability to maintain longterm occupation the way the Soviets or Ottomans did.
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Fighting wars isn't the same as having an empire.
You don’t have to physically occupy a country to exert influence over it, and we weren’t “subsidizing the global order.” We profited from the order, so continued to bring it about. How do you think we became the economy we are today?
> The American Empire never existed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Then explain what they've been doing in South America for the past 100 years.
> the collapse of the American Empire is no more preventible than the collapse of the British, Spanish, or Roman empires
They each had longer runs than we’ve had.
My pet theory is lead. From 1950 to 1980 we birthed a leaded generation [1]. Today, up to 60% of American voters were born before 1975 [2]. (Voters born between 1950 and 1980 came into the majority in the 1990s and should fall into the minority by 2028, but only barely. So in summary: Iraq War, Financial Crisis, Covid and Trump 47. It won’t be until the 2040s when truly unleaded voters, those born after 2000, command a majority.)
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35254913/#&gid=article-figur...
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/the-changing...
Idk about the lead idea. There was a lot of BS going on in the world before it showed up.
America doesnt really have an empire. What is America's Hong Kong, India, etc?
America's empire isn't really built on blantant colonialism (although we do that, too). It's built on "planting" US favorable governments all around the world.
I mean, we have half of Africa shooting themselves in the foot over and over for our own benefit. And every time it looks like an African nation is going to do something about it, some counter-military force appears out of nowhere (with US arms?) and some important political heads are assassinated.
This isn't a conspiracy theory, either. The destabilization of world governments done by our government to our benefit is well recorded.
Dude come on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_imperialism#Strategy
Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, are locations that are directly under US control. The entire western hemisphere is within our sphere of control, and a huge chunk of the planet was either directly aligned with us (EU, AUS/UK) or was compliant for fear of regime change.
The country itself was founded on the destruction of dozens of civilizations, a victory so total you don't even consider it as part of US imperial conquest. I can't believe I even have to explain this to people on here my God.
The combined population of those locations is about 5 million people. Compare with, say, colonial India, which was about 300 million people.
I’m not denying the existence of American imperialism entirely, but let’s be real about its scope compared to old school empires.