Rule America?
Via LGF:Rule America? Liberal elites ruined Britain as a hyperpower. Could America meet the same fate?
In an important sense, the British Empire's strength failed because its elite liberal citizens stopped believing in it. The parallels with 21st-century America are striking. In little more than 10 years, England went from victory in World War I to serious discussions about completely disarming herself. Talk of a "peace dividend" began with the fall of the Berlin Wall and culminated 10 years later with a major draw-down of forces and the abandonment of the two-war doctrine.
I already found a reply to this essay:
Why Liberal Elites Can't Sink America
The Internet is going to save America...or, I should say, the New Media will, by breaking the liberal elite's media monopoly. In 1930's Great Britain, anti-patriotic elites held a lock on the machinery of "idea dissemination," just like American liberal elites did until the 1990's. Thus, the British people were fed a steady diet of defeatism, doubt, and even hatred toward British Civilization. Those who opposed the elites had scant opportunity to fire back salvos supported by reason and rationality.
Trials in Baghdad, tribulations in Washington
Having recently written a book with the subtitle The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, I am regularly asked when exactly I expect that fall to happen. The answer is not this year, next year or the year after that. Not this decade. And quite probably not this century either. I would say America is currently somewhere around the reign of Trajan. If I remind you that Dacia was modern-day Serbia, and Mesopotamia modern-day Iraq, you will see that there is a striking geographical parallel between recent American military expeditions and the campaigns of Trajan. Yet Trajan's over-extension of the empire was easily rectified by his successor Hadrian, who withdrew from Armenia, Mesopotamia and Assyria. "By every honourable expedient [he] invited the friendship of the barbarians; and endeavoured to convince mankind that the Roman power, raised above the temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order and justice." That sounds like a straightforward enough foreign policy for Mr Bush's successor.
posted by Unknown @ 8:13 PM
1 Comments:
Hmm, Britain was one of Europe's most 'liberal' nations even by the middle ages (Magna Charta anyone). Britain built its empire as one of Europe's most 'liberal' (by which I mean political enfranchisement and economic freedom) countries. Traditionally conservative countries like Spain and Germany either lost their empires very quickly or never managed to build any in the first place.
No, the key to being able to build up an empire - to military domination of other countries - is economic power.
Britain began to loose its empire after it was bankrupted by WWI. It was heavily indebted to the US which had more or less financed it for the UK. Thus began the rise of US power.
Likewise, US military power over other countries in the world (if you choose to call it an empire or not is not so interesting) will not be brought to an end by any 'liberals' (which means something else in the US compared to Europe, but that's another story).
Instead its going to loss of economic dominance which will end US hegemony. And this is happening quite quickly. The US is already heavily indebted to China, which has bought a majority of the bonds the US govt has been forced to issue to cover its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, amongst other things.
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