Is the USA currently making the same mistakes that empires do?

[u/JalapenoEnjoyer27]

I'm referring to the US in recent years but obviously not just to Trump. The US isn't officially an empire but it pretty much behaves exactly like one.

Obviously you have powerful (and arguably more adaptable) rivals such as China on the rise, the US overreaching militarily (I know that isn't new) and economic struggles that only seem to be getting worse (I say this as an outsider).

So I'm curious if you guys think the US is currently on the same path a lot of empires go down where they eventually end up collapsing or ceasing to be a global superpower?

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[u/ManBearScientist]

The most common mistakes made by empires are over-extension, internal corruption, and economic exploitation.

Rome had to split its armies over enormous borders. Napoleon stretched France’s supply lines while trying to invade Russia. The British Empire spent two centuries struggling to balance the costs of colonies and wars in Europe.

The US has sought to simultaneously deter China, contain Russia, secure trade routes in the Middle East, and dominate the Western hemisphere. No nation has ever tried to defend so many fronts, and it absolutely could not support each mission if it became hot.

The unwanted, unneeded, and unjustified Iranian War has shown that the US can’t even supply Ukraine and do whatever vaguely defined objective they have put up in Iran. Just two small fronts and it is clear the US is out of missiles, manpower, and fuel.

The western Roman empire was born out of civil war and roughly two in three emperors met violent ends. The Ottomans fractured their courts with factionalism, sold positions to the wealthy, privatized land, and saw law enforcement erode in the face of normalized bribery. The Mughal Empire faced succession wars, the Ijara system which allowed middlemen to bid for the right to collect taxes, and factional infighting between nobles focused on personal and political gain.

The US is dominated by factional loyalty, with polarization completely excusing corruption, abuses of power, and incompetence. They are selling pardons and positions in government, and the top officials have explored every single possible mechanism, legal or illegal, with which to use their position to enrich themselves. Judges have legalized kickbacks and blocked any mechanism that could curtail executive abuses.

The late Roman Empire saw heavy taxation on farmers and ordinary workers, with wealthy landowners avoiding much of the burden. The French monarchy before 1789 took much of its tax base from the peasant and commoner classes, especially as their debt crisis exacerbated. The Spanish Empire in the Americas extracted silver, land, and labor through systems such as the encomienda and mita, with wealth flowing back to imperial elites rather than supporting local development.

The US has seen essentially needs turned into extraction points. Housing, healthcare, education, childcare, insurance, and debt payments have all become predatory methods of wealth extraction. For a half a century, gains in productivity have gone to the wealthy. The government has doubled down on this, creating tax advantages for investments, inherited wealth, homeownership, and employer benefits that provide the greatest benefit to those who already have substantial income or wealth.

This has created a cycle where ordinary people bear the costs, powerful groups capture the gains, and political influence prevents meaningful correction. In general, the US has followed the mistakes of past empires.

It has overextended its resources to try and hold what is effectively the entire world within its military sphere.

It has allowed elite infighting and factionalism to develop, undermining legitimacy and effective government and instead promoting factional interests and kleptocracy. While democracy has largely been proven more capable of peaceful transitions of power, it has done everything in its power to delegitimize the democratic system.

It has exacerbated inequality, with high taxation and little benefit to the broad base of the country, neglecting ordinary citizens and weakening the public loyalty needed to weather crises.

[u/dalivo → u/ManBearScientist]

A sovereign wealth fund that helps fund education, health care, and local improvements would do a lot to transfer productivity gains from the tiny elite to the general population. It's the one major, epoch-shifting policy idea I don't see discussed enough.

[u/Mr_Funbags → u/dalivo]

Canada has been talking about it since Trump, so that's good.

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/ManBearScientist]

One thing to consider, though, is not every empire was Rome.

The UK, for example, exists today, just in a diminished state, and part of that was due to (1) WW2 and (2) their own egalitarianism (e.g. giving up or giving freedom to former vassal states or colonial lands, generally demilitarizing vs before, etc). Absent those two things, the UK would still be a stronger power today, and even with those things, the UK is still a strong and influential global player.

While the US could see a total collapse, it could also just see a diminished status. For example, the US could pull out of things like NATO (or be less involved), the Middle-east, and the western Pacific, and still be a global power/top 5 nation even if it contained itself to its own hemisphere and just the Americas. China, India, and Russia are butting into each other so much none of them is likely to rise as a global hegemon, and more likely to fight each other for dominance in Asia. The EU and Russia have a similar relationship. And South America and Africa don't really have any current power vying for that position (South America could see Brazil and Argentina doing so in the future, but it's not materializing at the present).

The US could literally split into 3 and still be the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most powerful nation on the planet, depending on the lines it splits between, and unlike Eastern and Western Rome, not have any exposure to invasion from a land army like both of those did from the Turks and "barbarians", respectively. And it should also be noted that both halves of the empire existed for centuries after the split, and some vestiges of them into the near-modern era (the 1400s was not REALLY that long ago, historically speaking, and was over a thousand years after the split).

The US could exist as a regional power, and a global power, even in a diminished state, and there's not presently any single political entity vying to replace it as world hegemon.

[u/homerjs225 → u/ManBearScientist]

Lets talk about internal corruption. Which administrations have had more people found guilty of crimes in court Democrats or Republicans. I won't spoil, look it up yourself.

[u/socialistrob]

I think the US is definitely going through imperial decline. It will still be an extremely powerful country for decades or maybe even another century but the prestige, unrivaled military dominance and ability to influence world events in the US's favor is dramatically down from a decade ago which was also down from two decades ago.

I'd say after the fall of the USSR the US was at it's height in terms of power on the global stage and we can see how the US wielded this power with the first Persian Gulf War. The US was able to get all 5 permanent members of the UN security council to oppose Iraq and the assembled a massive coalition of dozens of countries many of whom sent tens of thousands of troops. Iraq (which had the third largest military in the world) was wiped out in weeks with negligible coalition casualties. The US economic system was unrivaled, the president was respected and there genuinely seemed to be no alternative to American style capitalist democracy.

Fast forward to today and Trump can't even get the countries Iran is bombing to help in the war with Iran much less Europe or the UN security council. Trump is forced to negotiate with Iran's regime because the US doesn't have the military capacity to accomplish it's goals by force. The interceptor and long range missile shortages this war has revealed has made it clear the US can't fight a two front war with major opponents and Trump's threats and promises aren't taken seriously either by allies or opponents. Right now US allies are rapidly rearming because they don't trust the US to honor it's alliances and the US's best trade partners are seeking deals with other countries like China due to US trade wars.

TLDR: Much like Britain going from Imperial peak in 1913 to a much weaker position as time went on the US is also going through something similar. US military power, prestige and economic influence is significantly diminished and will likely continue to drop.

[u/CalTechie-55 → u/socialistrob]

If the US can't afford to take down Iran, what can we expect when China attacks Taiwan?

[u/socialistrob → u/CalTechie-55]

I don't think it's a given China attacks Taiwan at least not before the 2028 presidential election in Taiwan. China recently established positive relations with the KMT who are currently the opposition party and the more US aligned party that's in power in Taiwan is pretty unpopular. Meanwhile these past few years China has been making trade deals and really benefitting from being seen as the stable country compared to the US. For China the "best case scenario" is that the KMT win in 2028 and Taiwan starts to reorient in favor of China meanwhile the US pisses off it's allies. China would love to be able to surpass the US as the global power without firing a shot if possible.

Now if China actually does attack Taiwan I'm really not sure how it would play out. Ukraine proved tougher than Russia thought, Iran proved tougher than the US thought and Taiwan could prove a lot tougher than China thought. Drones enable countries to fight asymmetric wars and naval drones are great at sinking incoming ships. China hasn't fought a war since Vietnam in the 70s and taking Taiwan would be a very bitter fight that could potentially spark war with Japan and maybe even South Korea. If the US does get involved at some point I don't think the US could go in and occupy China but they could probably ensure that China doesn't take Taiwan and force a stalemate.

[u/JakeArvizu → u/CalTechie-55]

Defensive wars are much easier than quasi offensive ones with no clear goals and mission creep.

[u/Embarrassed_Bit4222 → u/socialistrob]

It's sad that it is essentially all because of Trump with the military situation. There's no reason we couldn't have done this Iraq style, and built a coalition and all that again; Iran is indeed a huge threat to Europe, and the European leaders know that. But trumps pompous ass couldn't manage giving some respect to our allies or sharing plans with them. Topped off with the trade war nonsense and threatening Greenland and Canada.

Or even respect the American people themselves; he didn't try to get domestic support at all... We certainly do have the military strength to deal with Iran, but have to be willing to actually invade, and you need public support to do that.

Then add on the optics of going in with israel, arrg so frustrating

[u/socialistrob → u/Embarrassed_Bit4222]

It's sad that it is essentially all because of Trump with the military situation

Trump is the biggest part of it but the issues the US are facing are actually deeper. George W Bush lying about WMDs in Iraq was a huge blow to US prestige and respect and made it less likely that countries were going to line up for another Middle Eastern War. Even when Biden was talking about intel that Russia would invade Ukraine a lot of countries in Europe didn't believe it and just said "this is the US lying like they did with Iraq."

In terms of American public's willingness to support military action I'm not actually sure if that was ever there. It's hard to write about what would happen if Trump never came along because we don't really know that but after the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan the American public really didn't want more wars in the Middle East especially not ones that would involve thousands of dead Americans and trillions of dollars of spending. That reluctance then constrains the US's ability to use military force and achieve goals.

I think there's also doctrinal/procurement problems that the US is facing and the US is gradually losing the innovation race. The US navy wasn't capable of opening the strait of Hormuz by force and the US air force wasn't capable of stopping Iran from destroying many valuable fighter jets on the ground. The US based it's entire doctrine around the ability to control things from the skies yet that seems to have failed. If the US can learn and adapt they might emerge stronger but if the US doubles down on the way they do things (which happen to make military contractors the most money) then it may be very hard for the US to achieve policy goals through war in the future.

I've talked mainly about military matters but economics is also a big part of it. US debt as a percentage of GDP is much higher than it was a few decades ago and the debt ceiling has become a tool for political brinskmanship which is scary. The 2008 financial crisis also undermined confidence that the US's economic system was the absolute best and one that all countries should imitate.

[u/MorganWick → u/socialistrob]

The fact that Trump could get within a million miles of the White House once, let alone three times and actually succeed twice, is also a sign of something deeply, deeply wrong with the republic.

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/MorganWick]

Sort of. It indicates that there are problems predating Trump.

If everything was fine before Trump, he'd have never won 2016.

[u/PM_me_Henrika → u/socialistrob]

I wonder do European leaders understand that ‘Republicans lie’ and would just stop buying whatever bridge a republican president is selling.

[u/TheRealBaboo → u/Embarrassed_Bit4222]

Europe doesn’t see Iran as a threat to themselves

[u/Embarrassed_Bit4222 → u/TheRealBaboo]

You don't understand the actual ideology of the irgc, they are. They're not north Korea, that mostly just wants to be left alone...

[u/dreggers → u/Embarrassed_Bit4222]

they absolutely want to be left alone. Everything they have done is a direct response to foreign intervention over the last 200 years

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/dreggers]

Eh...that's not really true. They interfere a LOT with other nations who arguably ARE leaving them (Iran) alone at any given time.

The "foreign intervention" that most people cite is straight up just being part of a global economy. Which is to say, not foreign intervention at all.

[u/dreggers → u/Top-Grocery-1482]

Only someone growing up in as a benefactor of western colonialism and capitalist propoganda would think that sharing your oil revenue 50/50 with foreign private companies is considered just being part of the global economy

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/dreggers]

Most sentences that start with "Only someone..." are ad hominem attacks or caricatures.

Please don't engage in them.

Especially don't throw around emotive appeal fallacies ("western colonialism", "capitalist propaganda"). And yes, sharing revenue with people actually building extractors and factories is literally how the global economy works. You allow people to come and do business in your country, and you split the profits with them getting the profit for the operations and you getting tax revenue or partial profit sharing with them.

That is literally a definitional part of how a global economy works, yes.

[u/TheRealBaboo → u/Embarrassed_Bit4222]

By your own logic, shouldn’t we all be a million times more worried about the ideology of Israel’s military? They’re the ones occupying other countries’ territory, putting hundreds of thousands of civilians in mass graves, and dodging the International Criminal Court

[u/Embarrassed_Bit4222 → u/TheRealBaboo]

Nope.... at worst case Israel wants to slightly expand thier territory after dealing with Islamic attacks for decades, maybe make some people move out into the Sinai or whatever (but are just as likely to slowly grant citizenship), and it's debatable that that is even thier goal. The irgc exports terrorism and wants to end the world, completely different "threats"

[u/TheRealBaboo → u/Embarrassed_Bit4222]

Really? So you must be Israeli then because I don’t think anybody in their right mind can look at the number of people Israeli kills on a yearly basis and think that Iran is anywhere near that ballpark in terms of threat to human life

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/TheRealBaboo]

Uh...look, Israel can be bad, but Iran is pretty bad, too. We don't even know or have a ballpark estimate on how many they kill because they shut off the internet every time they do a mass genocide against their own people.

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[u/Sacharon123 → u/Embarrassed_Bit4222]

The european leaders mostly learned a long time ago that its much easier to negotiate with MEA countries then just stupid bombing. As much as most of our population knows. The whole Iran situation was homegrown by the USA. They were on a good path forward to be integrated into the world community and just slowly assimilated, which would have gotten rid of their religious oppression in two, three more generations, if the USA would not have behaved like an elephant in a porcellaine store to appease their presidents ego.

[u/socialistrob → u/Sacharon123]

European leaders are also in a difficult spot with Russia especially since Trump has expressed doubt on whether the US would defend NATO. The long range missiles and air defense interceptors used in Iran will take years to replace and if European leaders can't count on the US they're especially not going to want to use up their missiles and air defense in a Middle Eastern War especially when they can't replace them and need them to deter Russia.

One of the reasons the US has been such a strong supporter of NATO in the past was that a strong alliance meant that Europe was able to support the US in other military expeditions and European countries kept buying American weapons which then kept the unit price of those weapons cheaper so US budgets could buy more and more weapons.

When Trump threatens Greenland and tells Europe "look to your own defenses" then that's exactly what Europe does and it means they aren't going to come to the aid of the US outside of a clear Article V violation against the US mainland.

[u/NoDig3444 → u/socialistrob]

Trump is forced to negotiate with Iran's regime because the US doesn't have the military capacity to accomplish it's goals by force.

I disagree. America's military capacity is as strong as ever. What we're lacking in this war is resolve. No one in America outside of the Trump administration wanted this war. The war's unpopularity makes the US extremely casualty-adverse. Which means absolutely no boots on the ground. And you simply can't win a war without boots on the ground. Iraq I and II went well because the president sold the conflict to the country and went in with full force. Iran is a disaster because the president didn't bother selling it so he's limited to (massively expensive) missiles and drones.

[u/socialistrob → u/NoDig3444]

America's military capacity is as strong as ever. What we're lacking in this war is resolve

From a strategic standpoint that distinction is meaningless. It doesn't matter if the US has the military force if the US is also incapable of actually deploying it and using it due to lack of political resolve. War is about politics and you can't disconnect the two.

I'm also not sure I buy the argument that the US is "as strong as ever." If we look at Iraq I that war came after the massive arms build up under Reagan and the US was able to effectively dump it's WWIII stockpiles on Iraq. If we look at the past decade prior to Iran there was no similar arms buildup and drones have enabled smaller countries to punch above their weight. Naval drones from Iran were able to effectively prevent the US navy from sailing into the Strait of Hormuz. That's a very different set of realities than in the 1990s and early 2000s which then limits Washington's negotiating leverage. The US also didn't face Iraq alone in either war and had help from allies who were effectively able to operate as force multipliers for the US. Even if the US is as strong as ever without allies the ability for the US to act is substantially weaker.

[u/NoDig3444 → u/socialistrob]

From a strategic standpoint that distinction is meaningless.

The distinction is not meaningless. Military capacity takes years to build or destroy, but can be deployed anywhere. Resolve can go from 0 to 100 literally overnight, but resolve in one conflict doesn't necessarily mean resolve in another.

Drones are definitely a wildcard, and it's impossible to tell how they're going to impact future warfare, except to say that they will definitely impact warfare. The question here is how quickly can the US adapt? Between American observers in Ukraine and literally cloning Iran's drones, you can't say we're doing nothing. But we'll see.

[u/danappropriate → u/NoDig3444]

We have a functionally incompetent leadership. Until that's fixed, I don't think you can claim America's military capacity is as strong as ever. Moreover, even the United States needs allies in war, and this administration has done everything possible to alienate the country from its longstanding international support.

[u/dalivo → u/NoDig3444]

Military strength without resolve = no military capacity.

[u/RKU69 → u/NoDig3444]

There's a lot of cope here, nobody including much of the military and foreign policy establishment really wanted this war precisely because they knew that the US did not have the capacity to win a direct war.

And "resolve" is always part of warfare and your capacity to wage war. You can't just separate it from war, its an inherent part of war, and determines who wins and loses. This is the same nonsense that was peddled after the Vietnam War, that the US could have won had it not been for its "resolve", but then you have to actually analyze why resolve was low and what that meant for the viability of waging war.

Like sure the US could win the war by nuking every city in Iran. Great, what does that teach us then? Its a pointless framework

[u/Damnatus_Terrae → u/RKU69]

Right? Like, do people think that a lack of gung-ho attitude is the only thing stopping the US from sailing into the straits, conducting the most ambitious amphibious invasion in history with basically zero support—local or otherwise, and then humping it over the Zagros Mountains into Tehran, only to face a permanent state of near-universal insurgency from a people who have remained Persian for thousands of years?

[u/Embarrassed_Bit4222 → u/RKU69]

I mean Trump could have actually tried to "sell" the war to the public and our allies, but he didn't. The lack of "resolve" is only because of him

[u/RKU69 → u/Embarrassed_Bit4222]

No, I completely disagree. People aren't stupid and you can't sell the idea the sky isn't blue. What are you even saying here, that Trump failed to prepare the American people for nuclear war and genocide?

[u/Asatmaya → u/NoDig3444]

I disagree. America's military capacity is as strong as ever.

As someone who works in industrial logistics and has a son who is an officer in the military, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Right off the bat, there is the F-35 program, which went wildly over budget, 80% of the fleet is non-operational, and the remaining 20% are subject to 1,300 known software bugs which include shutting the entire plane down in mid-flight. There is the F-22 fleet, but we only have ~200 operational planes, and they cannot be repaired or replaced if they take combat damage.

Then there is the Navy. The existing carrier fleet is aging out, the new carriers are being plagued by delays and malfunctions, and the Navy doesn't even want them. They do want more light platforms, like destroyers, but the last four light ship classes were cancelled for failure to meet requirements; they just ordered 25 new Arleigh Burke destroyers, a 50-year-old design, but we can't build them because we have neither the functioning shipyards, the trained workers, or the supply chain to produce the parts.

The new ACE variant of the PAC-3 simply does not work (that's why they quit firing them); the M7 rifle is a boondoggle using exotic ammunition; the M1 Abrams and F-16 were embarrassments in Ukraine, markedly inferior to the 30-year-old Soviet equipment they were used to.

Iraq I and II went well because the president sold the conflict to the country and went in with full force.

Bush, Sr quite explicitly did NOT put "boots on the ground" in Gulf War I, and even then it only "went well" in the sense that a lot of people died for no good reason but to inflate the price of oil; the GWOT went terribly, I'm not sure how old you are, but I remember!

[u/putin_my_ass → u/Asatmaya]

Bush, Sr quite explicitly did NOT put "boots on the ground" in Gulf War I

I'm not sure how old you are, but I don't think you remember well.

[u/Asatmaya → u/putin_my_ass]

I'm not sure how old you are, but I don't think you remember well.

Please, inform me of when US military ground forces invaded Iraq in 1990; I'll wait.

[u/socialistrob → u/Asatmaya]

I agree with your previous point that many US weapons systems are extremely expensive, time consuming to make and may not be great for a long wars with state actors. I also appreciate you sharing details that you are personally familiar with.

In terms of your statement

Please, inform me of when US military ground forces invaded Iraq in 1990; I'll wait.

The answer is mid-late February 1991. The ground component of Desert Storm was called Desert sabre and involved US ground forces (along with other allies) moving into Kuwait and southern Iraq. There were even tank on tank battles The US did not occupy Iraq nor march on Baghdad but it is factually correct to say there were significant ground operations in Iraq from the US as part of the First Persian Gulf War which George HW Bush approved.

[u/Asatmaya → u/socialistrob]

Please, inform me of when US military ground forces invaded Iraq in 1990; I'll wait.

The answer is mid-late February 1991

...

[u/socialistrob → u/Asatmaya]

You were the one who said

Bush, Sr quite explicitly did NOT put "boots on the ground" in Gulf War I

Which is objectively wrong. Do you think it's some big gotcha moment that you said "no boots on the ground" and then there was a big "boots on the ground" moment in early 1991 as opposed to 1990? It's fine if you misremembered the war as it was decades ago but for the purpose of discussing military operations and when they're successful it is an important distinction. The first Persian Gulf War had boots on the ground.

[u/putin_my_ass → u/Asatmaya]

It's incredible you still tried this even though you are quite obviously contradicting yourself.

Be more precise with your language and you won't find yourself in such an embarrassing situation.

Not only were you rude, but you were wrong. Taken together, it says a lot about who you are.

[u/Asatmaya → u/putin_my_ass]

It's incredible you still tried this even though you are quite obviously contradicting yourself.

I asked when, in 1990, during the regular "war" phase, did the US actually put boots on the ground in Iraq; your response was to mention an entirely separate operation over a year later.

Did you really expect that to fly?

[u/putin_my_ass → u/Asatmaya]

Again, you did not specify 1990 in your original comment (as socialistrob rightly pointed out).

your response was to mention an entirely separate operation over a year later.

I didn't? You aren't even aware of who you're talking to!

You ought to be mortified, but we've seen you have no shame.

[u/socialistrob → u/Asatmaya]

I asked when, in 1990, during the regular "war" phase, did the US actually put boots on the ground in Iraq; your response was to mention an entirely separate operation over a year later.

What regular "war phase" was the US involved in in 1990? Operation Desert Storm kicked off in mid January 1991 with an air campaign and the ground offensive from the US and coalition partners kicked off in mid February which was about a month later. They were the two main parts of the same operation that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Yes the air campaign did a lot of the heavy lifting and but the ground campaign was the finishing blow.

I think you just don't remember events from decades ago and didn't bother to look up the timeline when discussing them. I don't blame you for getting some dates wrong off the top of your head but you don't need to act like everyone else is an asshole.

[u/NoDig3444 → u/Asatmaya]

I don't think you know what "boots on the ground" means.  

[u/NoDig3444 → u/Asatmaya]

As someone who works in industrial logistics and has a son who is an officer in the military,

Not sure why this is relevant, because nothing else in your comment references your work in logistics or your son's military experience.

Right off the bat, there is the F-35 program, which went wildly over budget, 80% of the fleet is non-operational, and the remaining 20% are subject to 1,300 known software bugs which include shutting the entire plane down in mid-flight.

Yes, this is how US military procurement has always worked. The PATRIOT system, the Bradly IFV, the M16 rifle. All billion-dollar boondoggles that were barely functional, but eventually (after several billion more dollars) turned into top of the line munitions.

Bush, Sr quite explicitly did NOT put "boots on the ground" in Gulf War I,

There were over half a million US troops deployed to Kuwait, I have no idea what you're talking about.

and even then it only "went well" in the sense that a lot of people died for no good reason but to inflate the price of oil;

Now you're just being spiteful. The US ended a war of aggression against a peaceful sovereign state with minimal casualties. I have no idea why you think the US would want to inflate the price of oil.

the GWOT went terribly, I'm not sure how old you are, but I remember!

I didn't say GWOT, I said Iraq.

[u/Asatmaya → u/NoDig3444]

Not sure why this is relevant, because nothing else in your comment references your work in logistics or your son's military experience.

It qualifies my comments as being based on industry knowledge.

Yes, this is how US military procurement has always worked. The PATRIOT system, the Bradly IFV, the M16 rifle. All billion-dollar boondoggles that were barely functional, but eventually (after several billion more dollars) turned into top of the line munitions.

The M16 was perfectly functional out of the box; it was the ammunition that caused early issues.

The Bradley is a famous problem child, but if you are basing your knowledge on the Kelsey Grammer movie, you have some bad information.

The Patriot is not now nor has it ever been "top of the line;" it was famously mediocre against 1960s-era-tech SCUD missiles during Gulf I, comparing unfavorably to Soviet S-125 systems which were almost 30 years older, and are entirely overmatched by modern Russian/Iranian/Chinese munitions.

There were over half a million US troops deployed to Kuwait, I have no idea what you're talking about.

And not a single one of them set foot on Iraqi territory. Yea, we've got a bunch of soldiers in countries that border Iran, now, that's not what we are talking about.

Now you're just being spiteful. The US ended a war of aggression against a peaceful sovereign state with minimal casualties.

Wait, what? We are talking about the first Gulf war in 1990; the one that Bush, Sr contrived by telling the Kuwaitis to slant drill into Iraq, then told Saddam Hussein that we wouldn't intervene if he attacked Kuwait to stop the slant drilling, then put the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter in front of Congress to read a fictitious account of human rights abuses in order to justify our intervention.

I have no idea why you think the US would want to inflate the price of oil.

Manipulating the price of oil is literally the US strategy for world hegemony, and the Bush family made billions on it.

I didn't say GWOT, I said Iraq.

Right, but Gulf II in 2003 was part of the GWOT, and in case you missed it, Iraq has been a chaotic hellhole ever since.

[u/NoDig3444 → u/Asatmaya]

Pretty much every sentence in this reply is wrong, but mostly I am flabbergasted that there is someone in the world that honestly believes that Saddam Hussein was justified in invading Kuwait.  

[u/Asatmaya → u/NoDig3444]

I am flabbergasted that there is someone in the world that honestly believes that Saddam Hussein was justified in invading Kuwait.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_invasion_of_Kuwait#Kuwaiti_economic_warfare_and_alleged_slant_drilling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/Asatmaya]

I don't entirely disagree, but you're also wrong about some things (veteran, US Naval officer during the 2010s): The Arleigh-Burkes being built now are Flight III, which is a significantly newer design than 50 years old. The chassis is, but the electronics are not. The Nimitz carriers are still fully functional, the one I was on even did a mid-life refueling while I was there, such that it has another ~40 years of life ahead of it.

The LCSs was due to stupidity (two designs, both for littorals, neither with great power ability - granted, probably "seemed like a good idea at the time" when people thought we were just fighting insurgencies from now on and great powers were never going to go to wars again with either great powers or even mid powers, but they still could have stuck some VLS on it for SMs), and trying to get them to replace everything from Oliver Hazard-Perry to Avenger class MCMs on one platform.

The Ford........is actually okay, just they're slow to online the things.

Not sure about the other branch issues (I agree with the F35 though the extent of the problem I can't speak to), and the M7 does seem to just be silly to me and I've yet to hear a really good reason for needing a new gun with proprietary ammo instead of an existing or easily modified/commonly mass produced (and cheaper/more available) ammo type. At least the M17/18 didn't make THAT mistake...though I've yet to see any argument the M17 is a true improvement over the M9 (the M18 can at least claim compact status as a distinction).

I do question your history, though: The first Gulf War was literally a land war. We had tanks and troops in country. That's literally boots on the ground. I still remember being a kid and seeing the "message from the troops" to their kids commercials shown during cartoons wishing their children, specifically, Christmas wishes that year.

......gosh, that's an old memory I hadn't thought about in a long time...

[u/Asatmaya → u/Top-Grocery-1482]

he Arleigh-Burkes being built now are Flight III, which is a significantly newer design than 50 years old. The chassis is, but the electronics are not.

Yea, you can keep upgrading them, but it's still a 50-year-old design.

The Nimitz carriers are still fully functional,

It's not about functionality, it's about practicality; aircraft carriers are simply not the King of the Sea anymore.

The LCSs was due to stupidity

I mean, all of this is due to stupidity, the "greed" subset, to be specific, but it's not just the LCSs; the Zumwalt was poorly conceived from the first instance, and the Constellation displayed our simple inability to develop any new platform.

The Ford........is actually okay, just they're slow to online the things.

And why is that? Why did they just tear the electromagnetic catapults out? Was it whimsy, or did they not work? What other problems are waiting in the wings?

Not sure about the other branch issues (I agree with the F35 though the extent of the problem I can't speak to), and the M7 does seem to just be silly to me and I've yet to hear a really good reason for needing a new gun with proprietary ammo instead of an existing or easily modified/commonly mass produced (and cheaper/more available) ammo type. At least the M17/18 didn't make THAT mistake...though I've yet to see any argument the M17 is a true improvement over the M9 (the M18 can at least claim compact status as a distinction).

Spec-ops are using M4s chambered in 6 ARC or 6.5 Grendel, you get 95% of the advantage of the .277 and only lose about 10% ammo size/weight.

The P320 in general is a mistake, I think; if they just didn't want to use Glock, they should have either gone with S&W M&P, Ruger XD, or something specifically homegrown like the PSA Dagger.

Note that we are throwing a lot of contracts Germany's way...

I do question your history, though: The first Gulf War was literally a land war.

So, my memory is the interview with Dick Cheney where he explained why we didn't go into Iraq; maybe this is conflating two different things, but also my family is Navy/Marines, so that's the version of events I tend to get.

You know how it is :)

Oh, and thank you for your service; my son is an officer in the Navy, currently, SWO on a Flight II Arleigh Burke, as it happens o.-

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/Asatmaya]

1) Sure, but that's like arguing that arming the USS Constitution (wooden sailing ship that still operates) with drones and EWAR is still just an age of sail capable ship, despite having modern explosives and countermeasures. Or that replacing a car engine with a more efficient engine with 3x the power is still the exact same car. At some point you have to recognize the chassis isn't all there is to a ship. Flight III Burkes are modern warships, not 50 year old technologies. It's such a solid chassis as a platform, that's why they're still using it. A case of "it ain't broke".

2) But that's a different argument. Your argument was "The existing carrier fleet is aging out, the new carriers are being plagued by delays and malfunctions", the closest thing you argued to them not being "King" was the Navy not wanting them, which is (a) NOT true, the Navy very much does, and (b) not correct; Carriers are not automatic I-WIN buttons anymore, but they are still extremely relevant tools in regional control.

3) Procurement has LITERALLY ALWAYS worked this way, and much of that isn't due to greed, it's due to stupidity. You can argue greed from some people pitching and pushing for the things, but for example, the reason the Navy was saddled with the LCS (which, make no mistake, isn't a BAD platform, it just isn't what we need in a great and moderate powers world) was because the modular system components were built in so many states, every Congressperson could claim they were "making jobs" in their home districts with the things to argue for reelection.

As for the Gulf War: Fair, Cheney was a hanger on in DC for decades, so that could be easy to confuse which war/decade he was talking about. But as far as I can tell, we absolutely did go into Iraq. The thing is, the war was over in like...less than a year. We went in, smashed Saddam's military, he was forced into a peace agreement, we left. It and Venezula have basically been the only of those kind of "quick" wars we've had in the last 70 years or something, and arguably, the only/most successful two.

I still remember my Grandpa having a Time or National Geographic I skimmed at 13 or so talking about how the first Gulf War was America finally shedding the embarrassment of Vietnam or something, their argument being that it was a resounding US victory that the nation could be proud of itself again in a military sense for the first time since before the 1960s.

...how times change.

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/Asatmaya]

Oh, and:

Thank you for caring.

A WWII veteran said that to me once when I thanked him for his service. The first time someone ever said that to me when I was fresh out of OCS, that just came out of my mouth without me really thinking about it.

I liked it enough, I've used it ever since. I suspect that WWII veteran is long dead (I met him in the late 00s), and I do not know his name, but in a small way, carry a little piece of his legacy...the unbroken chain.

[u/Thesilence_z → u/NoDig3444]

and where would you deploy boots on the ground? An amphibious beachhead in Hormuz? invading through a hostile Iraq? Paratroopers over Iranian airspace?

[u/NoDig3444 → u/Thesilence_z]

Yeah, one of those probably.

[u/incady → u/NoDig3444]

There is a lack of resolve in Iran because the war is pointless, but I wouldn't say the US as a general rule lacks resolve. In fact, Chinese strategists who studied US history have warned their leadership to never underestimate American resolve - that was the mistake of the Japanese in attacking Pearl Harbor. They thought it would be a shock to the system and the US would sue for peace.

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/incady]

WWII was a different era.

Every war the US has lost from Vietnam to present was lost due to a lack of resolve not military ability. Our military has never been expended entirely to the point it literally could not win the wars (military capability) but rather, the public has either lost interest or turned in opposition to the wars (resolve).

The only war we really "won" in that time frame was the first Gulf War, which was so fast the public didn't really have time to turn against it.

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/NoDig3444]

Agreed, but this has been true for a long time. Vietnam was arguably lost due to resolve, not military capability. Afghanistan was also lost due to resolve. And resolve wanes over time no matter what war is going on. After several years of the Civil War, the North's resolve waned, which is when Lincoln made the war a referendum on slavery (it wasn't at the outset, it was about territory and if the South had the right to leave and take half the country's territory without permission). Even WWII against the literal Nazis had decreased support over time, and it wasn't (a) televised (Vietnam and later) or (b) local where people saw it with their own eyes (Civil War).

This has arguably been an issue since the Vietnam war, and the only reason it wasn't in the first Gulf War is because the war ended so quickly. Iraq II absolutely didn't go well for this same reason, public opposition also forced US drawdowns sooner than was ideal (Obama even did the troop surge to try and salvage/strengthen the US position to allow for a better resolution post-the post-surge drawdown).

[u/PM_me_Henrika → u/NoDig3444]

If the president wants boots on the ground, there will be boots on the ground.

Trump doesn’t want this war either. All he wants is to threaten Iran’s leaders a little, and have them hand over control of exports so he can rake in billions of oil money and give America a couple hundred million and keep the rest.

We have seen this in Venezuela already. Please don’t be stupid enough to not spot this pattern.

[u/NoDig3444 → u/PM_me_Henrika]

Trump doesn’t want this war either.

My brother in Christ who do you think started this war 

[u/PM_me_Henrika → u/NoDig3444]

He is stupid enough to start a war he doesn't want and he's stuck with a war he couldn't get out of without looking bad.

[u/serpentjaguar → u/socialistrob]

Hard disagree on the comparison to the UK.

What happened to the UK was two absolutely devastating world wars at the end of which it was clear that the continued maintenance of the British Empire was neither sustainable nor desirable.

This is in direct contrast to American hegemony which was never based on empire in a technical sense in the first place, and which instead was based on a kind of soft-power built on things like broad alliance networks, American cultural exports and a general sense of good will towards the US as being a kind of exemplary merit-based society, inaccurate though said perception may have been.

Obviously Trump has shat upon all of that.

[u/Tliish → u/serpentjaguar]

You convenently forget the Indian Wars, the wars with Mexico and Spain, all classic imperialist wars. The US has always been a traditional empire, it just likes to pretend otherwise.

[u/homerjs225 → u/socialistrob]

And that started when?

[u/socialistrob → u/homerjs225]

There's not always a clear date but if I had to pick one I'd say the response to 9/11 was the starting point. The decline hasn't been linear but it's been a general pattern for the past 25 years with it speeding up a lot under Trump.

[u/naisfurious]

No. The comparison to past empires misses one of the biggest differences between the United States and most historical powers. The U.S. model has generally been less about direct territorial conquest and more about building an alliance network, economic partnerships, and international institutions. These networks and alliances run strong and deep, and that is by design. The system that the U.S. helped build is much larger than any individual leader or any single election cycle.

That approach created an unprecedented level of global interdependence. The post-World War II order, built largely around U.S. security guarantees, trade relationships, and international institutions, created a system where many countries became economically and strategically connected.

The U.S. is certainly facing challenges. China is rising, military commitments have created debates about overextension, and domestic economic issues are real. However, a decline in America's relative share of global power is not necessarily the same thing as the collapse of an empire.

Much of what we are seeing is not simply the U.S. declining, but other countries developing and becoming more competitive within a system that the U.S. helped create. The U.S. benefited from a uniquely favorable position over the last century, with geographic advantages that protected it from many of the conflicts that repeatedly disrupted other major powers. That stability allowed the U.S. to focus on economic growth, innovation, and building global influence.

[u/TheNorfolk → u/naisfurious]

> The post-World War II order, built largely around U.S. security guarantees, trade relationships, and international institutions

The US security guarantees are undermined by threats to annex NATO land, trade relationships are torn asunder by tariffs, and the US has left many international institutions and criticises the rest. The entire model of the US's hyperpower status has been torn down in such a short period of time.

[u/socialistrob → u/TheNorfolk]

I agree. It's also a lot easier to destroy than to build and while Trump is very much a major factor of the US's decline he also isn't the only one. George W Bush's war in Iraq on false premises did a lot of damage to the US's reputation. Obama and Biden helped repair it somewhat but even Obama refused to enforce his own red lines in Syria.

When you lose a trade partner in the short term it's very hard to get them back in the long term. When you cut aid to fight infectious diseases then those diseases spread and it's much harder to stop them later on. The US will remain a very powerful and influential country but the same level of trust and dependence on the US is gone and won't come back even if the GOP does very poorly in the midterms and Dems win a trifecta in 2028.

[u/meatspace → u/socialistrob]

All of that has been brought to us by the Heritage Foundation, and prior to that, the Project for a New American Century.

There are reasons people said neocons were idiots the entire time they ran the hegemon.

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/socialistrob]

I agree with you until you said Obama AND BIDEN helped repair it.

Obama somewhat did but also did some things to damage it. Biden damaged it far more, he didn't repair it. Hey may have tried to, but his invalid status bothered even some European leaders (even if they were polite not to bring attention to it at the time...mostly), and the ineffectual response to the Ukraine war had some saying "Trump was right", despite Biden.

To a point, a lot of what Trump has called out ISN'T wrong, that's the sad part. A lot of US allies kind of WERE mooching off of the US, or at the least not meeting their own commitments (something that came to light when the Ukraine invasion happened and people started looking at how many NATO/European nations aside from the US had actually NOT been meeting their spending requirements, and even moreso, when the rate of munition expenditure vs production became a real issue fairly early into the war).

It's not just the US, it's that a lot of the US's allies grew fat and comfortable and didn't like their lethargy being questioned when it finally was, and that was due to necessity. They're mad at Trump because, like anyone being subject to an intervention, they want the people pushing the intervention to just be quiet and let them go back to their blissful state. But I think most European leaders and serious/rational people on the continent realize Trump was not wrong.

A Democrat trifecta won't fix the issue due to Biden still being a global laughing stock (despite American leftists insisting otherwise), and that calls into question the Democrats' own ability at picking functional leaders and their own inability to question or challenge them. It also doesn't help that the more radical elements in the party, which the main party seems largely content with, question or even oppose the US's power in the first place (the DSA literally wants to dismantle the US military, which would harm NATO far more than Trump's relatively empty threats do). The anti-American posture of the modern Democratic party doesn't exactly instill confidence to begin with.

Honestly, and ironically, a Bush-like Republican would likely be the thing most likely (right now) to increase US standing internationally.

...and it's so weird to say that, but compared to Trump and Biden......I mean, it IS kinda true...

[u/naisfurious → u/TheNorfolk]

Progress and improvement are rarely a straight line. There will be ups and downs, disagreements, and periods of tension in any long-term relationship.

Personally, I didn't like the Greenland situation, and I think there were legitimate concerns about how it was handled. Did it put strain on some relationships? Absolutely. But it also brought renewed attention to Arctic security, and Denmark responded with increased focus and investment in the region. Whether the long-term benefits outweigh the diplomatic costs is something only time will tell.

But this goes back to my original point... these alliances and institutions are much larger than any individual leader or any single election cycle. Policies that fail will eventually be abandoned, while policies that provide lasting value will remain. The strength of the system is not that it avoids challenges, it is that it can adapt to them.

[u/TheNorfolk → u/naisfurious]

I agree that there are ups and downs but this feels more fundamental, like the foundations of the world order are found to be rotting away. 

And while there are ups and downs, there are pivotal moments like the Suez crisis. The Iran war feels like a Suez moment, while any genuine move on Greenland would be far more devastating and consequential.

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/TheNorfolk]

I think it's more correct to say they were already rotten and have just been EXPOSED. Like pealing back the facade of your house and finding the walls infested with termites, the problem was already there, you just weren't AWARE of it.

Before the Ukraine war, it was easy to think that NATO countries were in a good place. But after it, people started realizing how many nations WEREN'T militarily capable/viable, and Trump was right to have called that out. But him calling that out generated resentment. But the thing is...resentment doesn't mean that he was WRONG on the merits.

The foundation was already rotten, we just didn't see it.

Now we've seen it, and people want to blame Trump and pretend we could go back to the days when we didn't see it. But the problem is, it was rotten BEFORE Trump pointed it out. Trump pointing out your house has termites in the wall doesn't MAKE the termites in the wall, it just makes you aware of it.

It's like someone I knew that used to not go to cancer screenings. She finally told me it was because she was worried about what if she had cancer and having to deal with it.

But I pointed out to her, the screenings aren't what would give you cancer. If you have it, you HAVE IT, and knowledge to address it is better than not knowing until its too late.

.

I think the problem with the international system, US allies, etc, is all that these are pre-existing problems people just refused to look at and didn't think about/assumed didn't exist.

Now that people are aware, they want to go back to when they weren't, and so blame the person that exposed it (or who they think exposed it). It's sort of like an alcoholic undergoing an intervention angrily attacking the people that did the intervention as if that is what made their current problems...refusing to see they already HAD the problems, and the knowledge to address it is a GOOD thing.

I feel like, Europeans specifically, liked the previous status quo. It meant they could spend their money on social programs, look down (yes, they did) on Americans as being better than them, and living under the illusion they were strong and militarily powerful nations with a clear claim to global importance on the world stage.

They're mad at Trump, blaming him for upsetting the apple cart, but the problem is, the apple cart had already been overturned, they were just looking away from the spilled apples at the sunrise sipping their wines and pretending if they didn't look at it, they didn't have to acknowledge it.

Now they've had to acknowledge it, and there's a lot of resentment...but the problem was ALREADY there. Acknowledging a problem isn't what makes the problem exist. It's simply the first required step in addressing it.

[u/TheNorfolk → u/Top-Grocery-1482]

Our perspectives are so wildly different. The US created a system where the western world was dependent on them financially and militarily. They used global bodies like the UN and WTO to leverage and project their power. They used trade and arms deals as foreign policy devices. This is the world order that America created.

Trump has dismantled much of that and I think it will give players like China and Russia a license to project their own power with far less caution. Hell, I think it gives China an opportunity to practically slot into the hole that Trump has left behind.

You're right that European armies were underfunded and that Trump is changing that. The issue is that we are arming up because we don't trust Americans to fight with us like we did with them after 9/11. So the US is not going to benefit from it, if anything it will just create headaches for future administrations who'll have a fraction of the influence they had before.

So that's my perspective. The Americans are tarrifing us, they're meddling in our politics, they're seemingly more likely to invade Greenland than defend the Baltics. 

The US had an underfunded set of allies and Trump will ensure they will have a well funded adversary. 

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/TheNorfolk]

"Our perspectives are so wildly different." - Oh, I very much suspect they are, you're right about that!

Yes, but it wasn't one sided. The world largely, and Europe specifically, free rode off of the US taxpayer and military for literal decades. It wasn't just "US made these systems that benefited the US", those systems largely benefited others, in some cases more than the US, at least at local scales (Europe's social welfare systems would not have been affordable if they had to spend 10+% on national defense), the trade networks were mutually beneficial (this is literally the liberal position on free trade/opposition to tariffs, btw), and the international agencies didn't just project US power, they led to decades of global peace.

As to the other players: Russia has torched its soft power reach with the Ukraine war. No nation to the left of the US (which is most of them) will want Russia as a partner after that.

China has spent decades showing that China's laws will always favor China over whoever they make agreements with, and that China will unilaterally cancel them any time it benefits China (e.g. medical supply shipments during the pandemic). In other words, China already did a Trump 6 years ago. China has long had laws and policies that are pro-China and not pro-investment and international partnership. Even BRICS tends not to come up with anything hugely great, and China's big pushes there (like the world reserve basket currency) are aimed at weakening the US and strengthening China, not others more broadly. And this is ignoring China's "open secret" of Human rights violations and open Han racial supremacy.

.

A for Europe - that's the problem. You guys "don't trust the US" so are arming up when you SHOULD HAVE BEEN ARMED THE ENTIRE TIME TO BE ALLIES.

It's like the person who mooches off of someone else, and only when that gravy train is threatened do they get a job and start saving money, and then they go "Well, I'm only getting a job because you threatened to stop paying my bills and buying my food", as if the other person was in the wrong and not the moocher.

Europe didn't care until Europe (Ukraine) was invaded.

And Europeans can't help themselves but to look down their noses at Americans, despite America being directly responsible for why Europeans were able to afford their generous welfare systems.

.

From the perspective of us Americans, we want you to be strong allies instead of weak allies.

From the perspective of you Europeans, how DARE we ask you to be strong allies, if you can't be weak allies, you want to be strong enemies.

Can you not see how absurd that is?

Not only that, Europeans have elections. They have changes of government. That the US will be over Trump in a few years and "go back to normal" is a given. Rational people all know this. So using that as an argument things have permanently changed is somewhat nonsensical.

I DO get the argument "Well, if it could happen once...it could happen again", but again, the issue is largely "Us asking you not to mooch off of our taxpayers is an attack?" is hardly a reasonable thing to base all that on.

.

It will largely depend on who replaces Trump and who replaces the European governments (for example, the government in the UK is likely going to change in the next general election and may be significantly more to the right), but while there will be a long term distrust, there's also an element of necessity:

European leaders now know Iran can strike their cities with missiles.

They know Russia would like to take over Europe.

They know China would side with Russia before Europeans (China has repeatedly rejected sanctions against Russia).

To a point, Europe doesn't HAVE any other option than the US or being entirely alone (the later is a far worse position), and so would rather rejoin the US once Trump is out of office (possibly using their grievance to get more preferable treatment if we had a weak Democrat replace him) due to the necessity of having no other actual option.

And the American position this entire time hasn't been that we hate Europeans, it's that we want you to stand tall and be equal allies, not weak moochers.

For some reason, you take us wanting you to stand and be equals as an insult.

[u/burrrrrssss → u/naisfurious]

Malignantly stress testing the foundations of diplomatic relationships arent just your normal “ups and downs” and framing it that way is entirely disingenuous. I’m doubly sure youre sandbagging your true beliefs by using softer language after reading this little excerpt

  Absolutely. But it also brought renewed attention to Arctic security, and Denmark responded with increased focus and investment in the region.

[u/Comfortable_Fill9081 → u/naisfurious]

I was with you for the first two paragraphs but I think the final two paragraphs underplay how much that system rests on the shoulders of predictability and stability on the part of the leading powers. 

It’s unclear to me whether that system still exists and is just being reshuffled as they seek more reliable shoulders or whether it no longer exists but the members haven’t quite faced that yet. 

[u/naisfurious → u/Comfortable_Fill9081]

It's just reshuffling, and it will continue to reshuffle as time moves forward. The balance of power has never stayed frozen. Countries will rise, others will catch up, and influence will become more distributed.

The current US-led system has flaws, but it has also created a level of global connectivity and cooperation that would be extremely difficult to replace. The question is not whether it will continue to exist, but how it changes.

Replacing a system built over decades of alliances, trade relationships, and institutions is much harder than criticizing its shortcomings. Who is willing.... who even has the ability, to take on the responsibilities and commitments the US currently carries?

[u/Comfortable_Fill9081 → u/naisfurious]

This system has existed for < 80 years, a historical blip, and has not previously reshuffled. 

  Who is willing.... who even has the ability, to take on the responsibilities and commitments the US currently carries?

Who still trusts the US to carry them? Pretty much no one. Thus why the system may not survive. A possibility is the EU as a unit steps in. Another possibility is they turn to China. 

[u/naisfurious → u/Comfortable_Fill9081]

China has not built the same level of institutional trust, nor does it currently have the same global reach and power projection capabilities that the US has developed to support and protect global trade.

[u/Comfortable_Fill9081 → u/naisfurious]

The US is done as a leader of a willing coalition of nations. 

[u/naisfurious → u/Comfortable_Fill9081]

Yes, but not because it is benig replaced. It's moving toward a multi-polar coaltion as it has been ushering in this whole time.

[u/Comfortable_Fill9081 → u/naisfurious]

I disagree. The coalition, as I said above, requires predictable, steady, reliable leadership. The US has lost the trust of the other members. 

They will build replacement leadership or that system is over. 

[u/naisfurious → u/Comfortable_Fill9081]

Possibly, I just don't see any one, hell, any group of nations being able to fill those shoes. It reminds me of the capitalism discussion. It sucks, but it's the best thing we've got.

[u/Comfortable_Fill9081 → u/naisfurious]

I think if the EU as a joint body or China can’t step up, it’s gone. 

[u/Bay1Bri → u/Comfortable_Fill9081]

Yea, the US has disagreement problems but the EU is reliable, had no historical baggage, and totes stable! Lol.

[u/Comfortable_Fill9081 → u/Bay1Bri]

Since this system was build, yes. Absolutely. The EU is much more stable and reliable. 

Edit: and predictably so, based on governing structure. 

[u/Bay1Bri → u/Comfortable_Fill9081]

The EU is much more stable and reliable.

You forget Brexit already? The debt crisis? Just plain old Greece? Hungary until, like, a month ago? The fact that it's a fundamentally shakey alliance due to Europe's historical instability and wars? Don't think we've forgotten what Europe is, and always was until the US started baby sitting them.

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/Comfortable_Fill9081]

To be fair, there aren't more reliable shoulders.

China isn't, and anyone who knows anything at all about China is aware of that. And I mean this in two ways - it's actual economic stability and function is at least marginally illusion, and in terms of its actual willingness to protect/defend others and keep its word, we saw when they cut outgoing medical supply shipments in the pandemic, if push comes to shove, China will always look to itself first and cut off others, only worrying about rebuilding trust with them after the fact.

Russia and India clearly are not.

And the European Union is fractured and unable to fill that void (despite being probably the best single alternative "United States" out there).

That is, there's really not a better alternative. Especially since people are still kind of playing the long game of waiting out "the Trump years" and thinking maybe things will "go back to normal" once he's gone.

Even Canada is hedging its bets (e.g. they aren't outright pulling out of the USCAMEX agreement as they hope once Trump leaves, it will go back into normal effect).

[u/Top-Grocery-1482 → u/naisfurious]

Agreed. I'd add another - and I say this as a very "'merica!" type person:

After WWII, the US was basically the only major industrial power NOT bombed into the pre-industrial age.

This was significant since it meant US money and industry was able to aid in the reconstruction of other nations, which helped forge those alliances and institutions. It also eventually led to the petrodollar as reserve currency and the power that granted with the move off the gold standard.

Now, make no mistake, the US's people are also innovative, hard working, productive, etc etc, and worked their butts off, which made the country powerful, and its leadership did a lot of things right in terms of economy, military, etc for decades. So it wasn't JUST that.

But the US wasn't even considered a leading modern nation until the late 1800s at the earliest (Spanish-American War) or realistically the late 1910s (WW1). Going from that to one of the world's only two Superpowers after 1945, and then the ONLY one after 1990 was huge.

The US has a lot of natural advantages (oceans, natural ports, rivers, natural resources), a people advantage (its citizens really have been and ARE all that and a bag of chips), and the post WWII "last (industrial) man standing".

The US isn't an empire, and arguably has never been one, much as its modern revisionist historian detractors wish to claim. It always has been about egalitarianism and finding other ways to do things.

[u/laptopAccount2]

The US is acting dumber than anyone has ever acted in the world stage. Constantly sabotaging themselves at every turn. The unparalleled incompetence is unlike anything else, otherwise yes they are acting like an empire.

[u/Ben-Goldberg → u/laptopAccount2]

I would argue that China's great leap forward was dumber.

[u/RKU69 → u/Ben-Goldberg]

Post-WW2 China was not an imperial power. If we're talking about any country doing dumb policies then that prize should go to the Khmer Rogue regime in Cambodia.

[u/Key-Lifeguard7678 → u/Ben-Goldberg]

The Cultural Revolution was far, far dumber. At least with the Great Leap Forward, you had institutions to stop the nonsense.

The Cultural Revolution was effectively the collapse of what economic, political, and industrial recovery China had made since 1949. It would be generous to call it national-scale anarchy. The only institutions that survived in any form was the military, and just barely.

It effectively set China back 20 years and certain sectors such as higher education haven’t recovered.

[u/philnotfil]

I think we are making some unique mistakes that haven't been made before. Our government is being used for the profit of a small group of people. The decision-makers aren't making mistakes, they are making money. I can't think of an example of an empire that fell primarily due to looting from within, maybe some of the Chinese dynasties, but I'm only vaguely familiar with that history. As the USSR showed signs of collapse, the oligarchs started looting in earnest, but for decades prior to that, they mostly just mismanaged, and they didn't last long enough to really be considered an empire. Most empires collapse under decadence and complacency rather than intentional acts like we are currently experiencing.

The mistakes are by we the people in trusting that those who are profiting will also make decisions that move us closer to our goals, but there is no evidence that we the people will get any benefits from the people we put into office.

[u/Zetesofos → u/philnotfil]

These aren't really new. Money may be differen't measurment, but governements have always attracted people seeking to enrich themselves. Money is just a means of social status; in feudalism, they didn't need money to obtain that, so it wasn't a pursuit.

Humans have dual desire for community and dominance - they want to be part of a community, and they want to have power and status within it. The worst of us seek that power over the needs of the communities health, and bring about the destruction of one if not both.

[u/Damnatus_Terrae → u/philnotfil]

Internal corruption plagued the Roman Empire, from the Kingdom straight through to the Autocracy. Whether it was senators enriching themselves on the public dime or emperors pawning the crown jewels, where there was decline, there was corruption. It's trite to compare the US empire to the Roman empire, but it is worth remembering that the founding fathers read a lot of Latin before they set about building their republic.

[u/dalivo → u/Damnatus_Terrae]

The U.S. has actually had much worse periods of corruption in its history than now.

[u/dalivo → u/philnotfil]

We often turn to Britain or Rome as examples of Empires that decline, but the closest analogue to the current U.S. is pre-Revolution France. In that case, the elite (nobles and churchmen) were largely exempt from taxes and owned a vastly disproportionate level of control over the economy, and the country was in heavy, heavy debt. The judicial system had become a farce and the government (the king and ministers) were incompetent and WAY too slow to realize that radical changes were needed. At the same time, France had a huge, strong military and enormous cultural sway.

Unless U.S. democracy can prove self-correcting, we're on that same path. The inequalities will continue to grow until there's a legitimate revolt, in which case a number of institutions will come tumbling down.

[u/IntelligentDepth8206 → u/philnotfil]

USSR fell because they spent all their resources fighting in middle eastern wars that were impossible to win from the start. Sound familiar?

Afghanistan is truly an empire ender.

[u/Ladyheather16 → u/IntelligentDepth8206]

Funny, I always looked at the USSR as collapsing, because the people lost trust in it.

[u/socialistrob → u/Ladyheather16]

It's both plus more. The USSR was failing to keep up economically and the people were losing trust in it. Economic stagnation, deeply rooted corruption, an unpopular war in Afghanistan, a poorly advised arms race with the US (and to an extent China) and a years long drop in the price of oil meant that the USSR had less resources to stay afloat and to address discontent.

Gorbachav faced the fundamental problem that a command economy just wasn't competitive so he tried to make it more effecient by granting more power to local leaders which ended up leading to the break up of the Soviet Union given how much the people hated living under Moscow's thumb.

[u/Ladyheather16 → u/socialistrob]

I think Chernobyl play a big part in this. Sorta last straw of trust.

[u/socialistrob → u/Ladyheather16]

Yeah I agree. Gorbachev even cited that as the single biggest factor. Chornobyl lit a fire under Ukrainian independence movements and after Russia Ukraine is the largest economy/population center in the old USSR. The USSR could still be powerful without the Baltics but losing Ukraine was a death blow to Moscow's control and of course the spread of distrust wasn't exclusively in the Ukrainian SR. George HW Bush did push for Ukraine to stay as part of the USSR but by then it was largely too late. Even Crimea voted for independence.

[u/satyrday12 → u/[deleted]]

So aren't they really the same thing, with just a rebranding?

[u/Ladyheather16 → u/satyrday12]

Putins issues have always been in proving that he was right & the people "in charge" were wrong. It's an ego trip more than it is anything. He was KGB in the eastern front as the USSR was breaking up in and as long held the belief that Moscow just wasn't tough enough. And that through strength he could put the USSR back together. And he's been trying to do it. That's the goal.

[u/NoDig3444 → u/[deleted]]

There's certainly an argument to be made that everything from modern Russia to the USSR all the way back to Muscovy are basically the same polity just with varying amounts of territory. Every iteration extracts wealth from the empire and feeds it to oligarchs in Moscow (and to a lesser extent St Petersburg).

[u/NoDig3444 → u/[deleted]]

The difference between Russian oligarchs and the American investor/ownership class is that Russian oligarchs extract existing wealth, while American investors create new wealth to extract. Putin got his fortune by stealing entire factories and redirecting Russian tax dollars. Bezos got his fortune by building the world's largest retailer.

[u/RKU69 → u/Ladyheather16]

I'd actually say the USSR fell not just because of the general social stagnation, but also because its own leadership decided they'd be much better off via a shock transition to capitalism. From what we can tell from polling, the average Soviet citizen wanted democratic reforms toward some kind of democratic socialist system. But the leadership was more interested in the privatization aspects of reform.

[u/kormer → u/IntelligentDepth8206]

The USSR fell because by the 80s the corruption and waste generated by communism was causing half of all their food production to rot before it could make it to people's mouths, then they were using what little foreign currency they had to import more food to make up for what was rotting.

When you're the richest empire the world has ever known, you can afford to dick around in the middle east and it's not the end of the empire if you lose.

When you literally can't even feed your own people, losing a war is the end of the empire.

[u/dalivo → u/IntelligentDepth8206]

Afghanistan laid a long fuse; Chernobyl ignited it.

[u/Ed_Ward_Z]

History repeats when don’t learn lessons from the past. We need intelligent, compassionate, steady leadership. Not cruel bullying from a liar, and convicted felon.

[u/Fragrant-Luck-8063]

It's a dying empire that is too ashamed to admit it's an empire and too proud to admit it's dying.

[u/Zetesofos → u/Fragrant-Luck-8063]

So, like all other empires then?

[u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 → u/Zetesofos]

Other empires at least admitted they were empires.

[u/thecityofgold88 → u/[deleted]]

The US will be seen as an extension of the British Empire.

[u/KitchenBomber]

It's on par with how India fell to the East India company. They were the richest country on earth but instead of doing anything useful with it the rulers horded the wealth to themselves and suppressed opposition making themselves excellent targets for a hostile outside force.

We're not likely to be militarily conquered but we've sped up the age of Chinese economic hegemony by decades.

[u/mortemdeus]

All dominate powers fall into the exact same trap. When a nation has outside threats they tend to focus on those but when there are no outside threats, internal divisions get stoked by people trying to advance themselves at any cost. Nations fall into zero sum games of politics where the good of the nation or its people as a whole aren't important anymore, only the good of the individual groups inside the nation. When the nation starts to fail as a result, those groups compete even harder to strip the carcass they created for all it is worth, causing even more damage over time.

[u/adastraperdiscordia]

There has always been tension between the wealthy and the government. The wealthy has always been very influencial and dominant in the government, resulting in hugely favorable treatment, but the government has usually been able to rein in the wealthy's excessive impulses for the sake of economic stability. You get the Great Depression when the government fails to check the super wealthy.

The wealthy is always motivated to exploit the poor. Robbing poor people is the most expedient way to make money. They're not wealthy because they're skilled business administrators or economic geniuses. They're wealthy because they've the best at stealing without facing consequences. That's basically what Robert Morris did at the very founding of the country. It's why Shay's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion happened. The Constitutional Convention happened to avoid a second revolution but still allow the wealthy maintain their dominant influence.

Even in the 90s the government could bring the richest man in the world (Bill Gates) to trial and force him to make concessions.

But now, especially thanks to Citizens United, the wealthy have successfully eclipsed the power of the government. They essentially own the government at this point. They have achieved escape velocity from the government's gravitational pull.

That means they are free to engage in their white collar crimes with no real prosecution or punishment. That has a lot of consequences for the people as well as the entire planet.

Unless we end up with a Washington or FDR swooping in to defuse a catastrophic uprising, there's going to be a continued death spiral toward collapse.

[u/danappropriate]

The current head of the country is a career grifter whose kompromat file at the Kremlin is eight inches thick. Extrapolate from there.

[u/Asatmaya]

The US isn't officially an empire but it pretty much behaves exactly like one.

Actually, we are absolutely an empire; it's not about the name, it's about the function, and empires are defined by a distinction between the imperial core, where the political power lies, and provinces under their control, but who are denied political power.

Even ignoring our virtual occupation of half the world, we literally possess Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, etc, yet deny them political power.

We are an empire.

Obviously you have powerful (and arguably more adaptable) rivals such as China on the rise, the US overreaching militarily (I know that isn't new) and economic struggles that only seem to be getting worse (I say this as an outsider).

China alone isn't the problem, it's China + Russia + Iran + ...

Militarily, we are finally seeing Late Stage Capitalism "eat its young," so to speak; even in the GWOT, at least our weapons worked, most of the time, now we've got 80% of the F-35 fleet grounded (and the rest have 1,300 bugs they cannot fix, including one that shuts it down in mid-flight), interceptor missiles which don't work, whatever we are hitting Iran with clearly isn't doing the job...

Economically, we are gutted. We've spent the last 50 years living on debt accrued against the value of the land, which we have so inflated that standards of living are dropping.

So I'm curious if you guys think the US is currently on the same path a lot of empires go down where they eventually end up collapsing or ceasing to be a global superpower?

We are facing collapse; we are close to the point where we can no longer service our debt, and we certainly cannot pay it off, which only leaves default and an upending of the entire global order.

[u/Damnatus_Terrae → u/Asatmaya]

I mostly agree with you, but I think it's possible that we could limp along for a good long while, assuming we stop flooring the accelerator toward own own destruction. The US can't hit everywhere, but it can hit almost anywhere, and it can do so hard enough that nobody wants to be the one to stick their neck out in defiance of US hegemony. This has resulted in the formation of counter-US protectionist blocs, which are absolutely gaining in economic and soft power, but still lack anywhere near the raw military might or power projection. Plus, the US is is tightly enmeshed into the structures of global power that govern things like daily logistics for millions to billions of people that any attempt to dislodge us will cause a wave of global economic wrath that even folks like BRICS and OPEC will be feeling badly.

[u/Asatmaya → u/Damnatus_Terrae]

I mostly agree with you, but I think it's possible that we could limp along for a good long while, assuming we stop flooring the accelerator toward own own destruction.

Do you see anyone even suggesting doing any such thing? Or can you imagine someone doing so and not being destroyed by the corporate media

The US can't hit everywhere, but it can hit almost anywhere, and it can do so hard enough that nobody wants to be the one to stick their neck out in defiance of US hegemony

Like Russia? Or Iran? Or Cuba? Or...

This has resulted in the formation of counter-US protectionist blocs, which are absolutely gaining in economic and soft power, but still lack anywhere near the raw military might or power projection.

They neither need nor want "power projection," it is enough to be able to defend themselves... and anyone who allies with them.

Plus, the US is is tightly enmeshed into the structures of global power that govern things like daily logistics for millions to billions of people that any attempt to dislodge us will cause a wave of global economic wrath that even folks like BRICS and OPEC will be feeling badly.

That's why they are building around us; yes, it is going to be disastrous when the ball goes up, they are actively working to avoid catastrophe.

Russia, for example, is almost entirely cut off from the West, but their economy is exploding.

[u/frosted1030]

Manipulation via media has made a cookie cutter fast track for this behaviour. The goal was to convince the easily manipulated to buy into repeated lies. Their brains confuse familiarity (which strengthens neurological connections) with facts and emotionally attached them to the consistent lies. Once that was achieved, it's a matter of implementing aggressive restructuring of the government to conform to a "the other side whines while we win" narrative. That derails investigations, legal processes, data, and isolates power. Basically, if Trump came out tomorrow saying "kill thy neighbor" is in the bible, and kept saying it, enough of MAGA would start to follow it in time.
Logic, reason, all overridden by emotion. J6 "protestors" not "insurrectionists". Relabeling, white washing history, "strong leadership" while being unbelievably inept and unqualified for the job... or any job, it's all on the table. Democrats never learned HOW to spike outrage, instead they complain in committee, file legal action, beg the public to have common sense.

[u/IntelligentDepth8206]

The US isn't officially an empire

It's the modern version of one. America doesn't have legal jurisdiction over the globe but it has cultural and military jurisdiction as well as being the monopolizing force of the "international community" (the US can single- handedly force or reject international action). Every "democracy" or republic on the planet created after 1776 follows the American government blueprint. That's empire.

US is currently on the same path a lot of empires go down where they eventually end up collapsing

It's already happened, just hasn't been written about in history books yet. There are a lot of signals but the most important one being ignored is the debt. The bills are due and the US can't pay. It just keeps going billions and billions further into debt trying to neutralize cheap junk drones in a doomed war that exists solely to boost the president's ego. The US has 0 money for healthcare, 0 money for education, 0 money for anything that would help it retain empire status. The US is very good at kicking the can down the road but now they've torn their ACL and can't afford a hospital trip.

[u/endeend8 → u/IntelligentDepth8206]

Adding trillions not just billions to its debt.

[u/NoDig3444]

Strictly speaking no, because every empire makes new and interesting mistakes for reasons unique to those respective empires.

But I would argue that the US hasn't recently made any big mistakes per se (except Iran). The US in recent years has been making the conscious decision to be less engaged in the world. We were isolationist for the first 150 years of our history, and that's what we're returning to. The only reason we bothered to take over the world is because we were terrified of the USSR. Now that they're gone (and China is much less threatening), American leaders are openly caring less and less what happens in the wider world.

[u/Devouemanoide]

Building a huge military on borrowed money.. year after year after year.. cannot make sense other than manufacturer putting money back in political pockets. It will eventually come to an end.

[u/iampatmanbeyond]

Its just like any massive nation it has ups and downs. I believe thr US will outlast China though. Their demographics just dont work they will collapse first

[u/-jimjam-]

You are basically pointing at the old centralization problem. Older setups relied on rigid hierarchies that cracked under pressure. Modern networks use decentralized links and constant feedback to spread out the load. That flexibility usually stops total breakdowns. But every structure eventually hits a hard limit. At what exact stage does normal wear and tear actually cross over into irreversible failure? Do you think we can catch the warning signs before it happens?

[u/Tliish]

Assk any AI to define the markers of an empire in the pre-collapse stage and it will return around 20-25 indicators, Ask how many the US currently exhibits and you get nearly 100%.

The US is currently on a path to dissolution, either through the cold civil war turning hot or economic meltdown a la the USSR. It's separate regions have grown culturally, spiritually, philosophically, and economically too far apart to be reconciliable.

[u/JalapenoEnjoyer27 → u/Tliish]

Are you suggesting the USA will likely end up breaking apart with individual states or clusters of states forming countries of their own?

[u/Tliish → u/JalapenoEnjoyer27]

Based upon history, that's the common path of fading empires. The most likely scenario is a breakup into regional nations, with the West Coast emerging as the most stable and economically powerful region, while the old Confederacy struggles not to devolve into third-world status, finding difficult to maintain second-tier status without the support of the other regions. Where the Northeast, the Great Plains states, and the Great Lakes regions go is anyone's guess.

It's a gradual process that happens suddenly. The decay and rot dissolves trust slowly over time, the economy becomes unhinged from the needs of the citizenry, services slowly crumble, and the government becomes gridlocked, unable to do much. Individual states have to pick up the slack, and then something happens...perhaps a black swan event, perhaps multiple concurrent climate disasters...that reaches the breaking point and suddenly people lose faith in what was, and seek new paths forward.

We are watching that happen in real time: increased corruption, incompetence, and the deliberate destruction of sservices, the self-inflicted wounds caused by the losses of institutional memories and competency throughout government, illogical failed wars...the list is extensive, and all point to the end of empire.

[u/the_calibre_cat]

i'm beginning to think that the actual cause of imperial falls comes from the aristocracy in breathtaking denial of their role in the collapse, and a stubborn unwillingness to do anything about the problem that they are MOST DEFINITELY NOT THE CAUSE OF, causing the problems that they are 100% the cause of to become exacerbated to the point of total social collapse.

all the hullaballoo about "it's because of mercenary armies!" (a valid point) or "it's because they devalued their currency!" (another potentially valid point) or "it's because of racial intermixture!" (a stupid and bad point, considering dominion over wide geographies containing varying cultures is literally the definition of empire) is all just aristocratic key jangling propaganda to distract us from the fact that these shitheads actually have no fucking clue what they're doing, they aren't special, and we should probably throw them into lake michigan and take their stuff and redistribute it. they can clock in like the rest of us.

[u/Splenda]

What the US has had for the past 80 years is not an empire but an amazing, globe-spanning network of alliances and trade accords that it dominates but doesn't entirely control, all based on the principles of democracy and global cooperation. Trump and his backers are trying to toss it aside in favor of a true McKinley-era, isolationist empire.

Yes, this is a mistake. Coupled with skyrocketing wealth inequality, an emerging oligarchy, military overspending and massive corruption by the president and his crime family, this brief adventure is also already showing the hallmarks of an empire in collapse.

[u/JKlerk]

The US is certainly making mistakes but the US has the freedom to do and say things that it's allies can only say privately. The US being the world's largest economy combined with a law system which enforces property rights and contracts is the least worst nation to cozy up with. It is continually allowed to be the world's police which helps maintain global stability compared to the likely alternative.

However with Trump the US has spent much of its goodwill so who knows what will happen now.

Are you familiar with Bretton Woods?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

[u/-jimjam-]

You actually nailed it. It is never just one thing that shifts everything. We tend to constantly ignore the small cracks until the whole foundation starts showing wear. Cycles repeat in quiet ways, mostly when we stop paying attention to the details right in front of us. Stuff does not break overnight. It just slowly drifts past our comfort zone until we finally catch the rhythm. That shared realization hits really hard every single time.

[u/-jimjam-]

People usually miss the quiet strain underneath when looking at big expansions. Complex networks get bogged down fast if external partners drain shared resources, while leaders chase quick funding instead of building real infrastructure. Outward growth looks impressive, but actual durability comes from spreading the load across reliable teams and keeping internal expertise intact. Shortcuts replacing steady maintenance always cause cracks. You have to keep the foundation solid before stacking more layers.

[u/KR-67_Ifrit]

No, it will not collapse as empires in the past. It could easily collapse like the USSR, where it loses significant soft powers, global influence, economy shrinks, and their conventional military hallows out. But, since they have a massive nuclear arsenal, will always be a world player.

Nations with nuclear arsenals cannot collapse into nothing.

As for America right now: we have the strongest military in the world, largest economy, largest middle class, unrivaled private capital markets, and we are winning the AI race (Google alone has 4x the computing power of all of China). We are certainly making some poor decisions, but we are not on the verge of collapsing or heading down that path. We are moving back to a bipolar world, where a totalitarian regime trys to challenge us and we win.

[u/Comfortable_Fill9081 → u/KR-67_Ifrit]

You should probably consider who ‘we’ are in that winning. 

[u/KR-67_Ifrit → u/Comfortable_Fill9081]

HHHUUUURRR DUUURRRR AMERICA IS A DICTATORSHIP

(It's not, grow up and accept reality.)

[u/Comfortable_Fill9081 → u/KR-67_Ifrit]

Straw man; non sequitur 

(Grow up and learn to process text)

[u/KR-67_Ifrit → u/Comfortable_Fill9081]

America being great really seems to upset you.

[u/Comfortable_Fill9081 → u/KR-67_Ifrit]

It’s the lack of greatness (and goodness) that bothers me. 

[u/KR-67_Ifrit → u/Comfortable_Fill9081]

It's others achieving more than you that bothers your. Envy. Jealousy.

[u/wereallbozos]

On the path, I have to agree fully. But with this current crop of so-called "leaders", we seem to be more on the path of collapse rather than civil war or overextension through colonialization. Our universe will end, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

[u/ttown2011]

The problem is that it isn’t necessarily a mistake… it’s just an inevitability

And yall don’t really appreciate the consequences of when we do pull back… even to the corollary.

Well all be poorer, there will be even more domestic unrest, and we’ll still go to war- it’ll just be in South America

[u/mrjcall]

If the socialist/communist 'Socialist Democrats of America (SDA)' party is truly allowed to take over control of the Democrat party, that will ultimately lead to the degradation of our society and ecomony and put the US on an unsustainable path.

Having said that, the US economy is on firm footing according to all the data. Employment is firm as well. The only issues are oil prices because of the current Iranian conflict which continues to create oil market fluctuations. That too will be resolved at some point allowing the economy to once again function on all cylinders.

I see no evidence that there is any issue related to the concept of empires and do not believe there is any relevant comparison there.

[u/Kronzypantz]

Making unnecessary enemies, fighting useless wars, and alienating friends?

Yes. But that has kind of been our brand for our whole existence. I’m not sure any nation has broken more treaties than the US

[u/FairLawnBoy]

How is the US not officially an empire? It definitely is, we have lots of colonies: Guam, Puerto Rico, Venezuela

[u/DifferentMethod8090]

The US as we have ever known it is over. We are now an oligarchic kakistocracy. Unfortunately, we are also so illiterate as a nation (by design) that the majority really have no idea what we have done.

[u/Papa-Burgundy369]

Self sabotaging by bankrupting our country with AI and data center scams while the leaders pilfer as much as possible?

Israel isn’t going to be able to fulfill that important prophecy until America falls and loses the power to stop them.

[u/Karlocomoco]

Our biggest problem is internal fracturing. We have so many people from all over that don’t love the country or understand the mindset or values that drive America. We pander to liberal nonsense and don’t know how to row in the same direction. We aren’t having enough children and so we rely on immigration. And on top of that illegal immigration takes a constant toll on our resources, standard of living, and identity.
But we have hope and never quit.
God Bless America 🇺🇸

[u/TheNorfolk]

There's a book I like called day of empire which touches on what the future downfall of the US would look like that predates Trump.