A Long Day's Journey into Night
It has become an academic fashion among some American historians to call the USA an "empire" without the slightest trace of embassarment. In a recent issue of Foreign Affairs Ralph Cohen even drew paralells with the known empires of the past:Alexandrian, Roman and of course,the British Empire. In making such comparisons, it is often forgotten that the Roman Empire laid the foundations of a literate, record keeping, and organised polity which over the centuries became the Europe of today. Surely the American Empire fails to evoke the same kind of picture that can be made of past empires. In short, empires are motivated by more than mere momentary passions and distractions. An empire that make domination its one and only raison d'detre is closer to the experience of Chengis Khan and the Mongols who created the biggest empire the world has ever seen, but disappeared like snowflakes in fire.
American troops are physically present in around 45 countries and in atleast 5 of them they are actively engaged in combat..In the ongoing war in Iraq the Pentagon hopes to commit 200,000 troops. This escalation in the troop levels will impose a serious strain on the fighting capacity of the US military. The Romans as Edward Luttawk has pointed out in his amazing book the Grand Strategy of thenRoman Empire made their cliet states fight for Rome as axulliaries of the imperial forces.. The USA has been singularly unsuccessful in making her allie {these days we call clients allies} fight her battles. Even the much trumpetted plan of involving the Iraqis in the conflict has failed. Iraqis are not biting the bait and the USA fights on alone. Not a vey happy position for a power aspiring for World Domination.
An overstretched military is not the only challenge. Since the start of the Iraq War the US dollar has lost 35% of its value. In any other country this would have set the alarmbells ringing. Since the US dollar still remains the main currency held by foreign governments and oil is priced in $ the green back can still sail. The day is not far when Japan, China and the OPEC shifts to euro
pricing and this will certainly affect the standing of the US economy.
In effect, the USA is now in the happy position of transferring its debt to the rest of the world and use the instrumentality of deficit financing to settle its huge debt. This ploy cannot last forever. Afterall, even the Roman currency which was legal tender all over the world at one point in time ceased to be accepted when the Empire began to debase its silver currency as a consequence of the inflation.
Let us see what happens.