Delusions of Inevitable American Decline

Peter Schweizer’s recent article provoked a recurring thought I’ve had.

Most analysts are always eager to talk of how historical forces are against large nations, offering endless scenarios about which factors are causing the decline of the United States, but I’ve never seen any legitimate parallels to convince me of such arguments. I will look at some common ones.

The Roman Empire

Meaning the Western Empire in most uses. Aside from various issues regarding moral decay, which is “oddly” linked to the rise of Christianity as the both the most common and the state religion, the key factor always comes down to the “barbarian” migrations, and the loss of border control. Many like to point to the current border problems as an example of how the U.S. is in decline.

This fails on multiple counts.

First is that the unwanted Germanic migrations into the Roman Empire occurred over a period of more than two centuries before the Empire finally collapsed, or just longer than the United States has so far existed. At that rate we have at least a century before we even need to get worried.

Then there are the repeated civil wars that wracked the Roman Empire during those years. If we count the American Civil War, we have managed two “American Presidents” once, and never a “Year of Four Presidents” as the Romans did twice.

Perhaps more critical is that despite invading the Roman Empire, the majority of those Germanic peoples actually wanted to embrace Roman culture. Up until the very end only a few preferred to rule in their own name rather than as representatives of the various Roman Emperors. Even Odoacer, who deposed the last Emperor of the West, did so simply to end the pretense, and ruled as a client of the Byzantine Emperor until Emperor Zeno arranged to have him replaced. This is important as it meant that despite the disruptions, the people those “barbarians” came to rule regarded them less as barbaric invaders and more as legitimate successors to a fading power. It also means we are missing a half-dozen successor states, ruled by local Governors “in the name” of the President, local ACORN and SEIU affiliates notwithstanding.

The French Empire

The French provide us a double example.

They built a large overseas empire during the 16-18th centuries, in North America and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, they had the British as rivals, and the greater part of this Empire was gone by the French Revolution. Napoleon did regain Louisiana from Spain – and promptly sold it to Jefferson when he realized he could not defend it.

The U.S. on the other hand has never had a rival as persistent as the British were for the French. More critically, at the current time the scope of actual American overseas territories is quite small. Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and 11 smaller islands, reefs, and atolls. Not to disparage the contributions of the people of those territories and commonwealths, but it is difficult to imagine their loss being anywhere near the scale of France losing control of the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi River.

Despite those losses, France managed to come back in the 19th and 20th centuries, before fading again in the last 50 years. What is regularly overlooked is that France has gone through five republics, two empires, the fall and restoration of a monarchy, assorted lesser revolutions, and two major wars, one of which resulted in the occupation of a large portion of the country for several years, during that time. We have had one civil war, and are only changed our establishing charter once, evolving the war time agreement to a “more perfect union.”

The British Empire

With so much shared history and culture, comparing the decline of the United States to the decline of the United Kingdom is as inevitable as predicting the decline of the United States. It is also as wrong.

Let us start with size. The current population of the United Kingdom is 62 million, that of the United States 300 million. The population of areas once ruled by the United Kingdom is over 1 billion. Even including the Philippines, the current population of overseas areas ever ruled by the United States is under 100 million.

Then let us consider Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These three, like the United States, are predominantly settled by citizens of the United Kingdom. Those countries becoming independent is about on par with every state beyond the original 13 plus Vermont, and Maine (filling in for the Acts of Union with Scotland and Northern Ireland) being ruled as territories that have since established “home rule” and are no longer subject to American law.

Then we must consider the vast changes in the UK government itself. While some talk of how our government has become “unrecognizable” because of the 17th Amendment, since the ratification of the Constitution, the UK has undergone two major revisions in the House of Commons (similar to if the House of Representatives was still operating on the numbers assigned by the first census), the end of the power of the House of Lords (equivalent to removing all powers of the Senate), the elimination of the power of the monarch (equivalent to making the President as relevant as the Vice-President), and the devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (similar to actually respecting the 10th Amendment – okay, that we should copy).

To say their government is as different from the government of King George III as our Constitution is far from hyperbole, and to expect an empire to survive such changes is almost ridiculous.

The Soviet Empire

As with the United Kingdom, a comparison to the only other superpower to ever exist is inevitable. In this case however it is a comparison we should invite.

Why?

More than how the United States subsidized the free world during the Cold War, the Soviet Union subsidized Communism, and other revolutionary movements, during that period. While the collapse of the Soviet Union has resulted in the loss of large territories of non-Russian peoples, it has also resulted in the end of the burden of those subsidies. As a result, and despite the drags of endemic corruption and lingering communist domination, the Russian economy is growing at a pace we are left envying. Sure they have other problems, but their economy is growing. This is similar to the growth in China as discussed in Peter’s article, though they only had Maoism to give up, losing no territory in the process.

Falling back from sole superpower status because China, Russia, the EU, and perhaps others, are now qualifying for Great Power status can mean we no longer have to subsidize the “Free World”, and can spend that money on ourselves. The “Cold War Dividend” should come not from cutting defense spending, but from simply letting everyone else pay to defend themselves.

Summation

Now these are all short and simple overviews; there are dozens of other factors involved in all of them, and dozens of other empires the United States can be compared to. What it should demonstrate is that we are simply not like any of them, and not likely to be like any of them any time soon. That brings us back to Peter’s question: “Is American decline inevitable?”

From my looking at history, not for at least another century, and only with some rival actively invading the lower 48 states on a regular basis.

Indeed history supports his answer, “Only If President Obama and Our Elites Don’t Want Us To Be # 1”, much more than it supports the possibility of such a theoretical decline.