13-01-2009, 05:49 PM
I'd say yes, but it has quite a few years left to do great harm - I'd not tender a guess, but it could be a decade or two, at most! (I'd think one would likely be its limit). I also think the end will be ugly in the extreme - first externally, then increasingly internally. I'm reading a very interesting book on the decline of Empires. It is called Imperial Ends - The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires by Alexander J. Motyl. In it he uses these points (and others) to define Empire's declines:
• I define empire as a hierarchically organized political system with a hublike structure—a rimless wheel—within which a core elite and state dominate peripheral elites and societies by serving as intermediaries for their significant interactions and by channeling resource flows from the periphery to the core and back to the periphery.
• Continuous empires are tightly massed and, in all likelihood, territorially contiguous; discontinuous empires are loosely arranged and often involve overseas territories.
• The core elite’s rule of the periphery may be formal, involving substantial meddling in the personnel and policies of the periphery,
or informal, involving significantly less interference and control.
• Decay is the weakening of the core’s rule of the periphery.
• Decline is a reduction in the imperial state’s power in general and military capability in particular.
• Disassemblage entails the emergence of significant interperiphery relations and spells the end of empire as a peculiarly structured political system.
• Attrition is the progressive loss of bits and pieces of peripheral territories.
• Collapse is the rapid and comprehensive breakdown of the hublike imperial structure.
The floor is open and the floor is really cracking wide open under America's feet, I think...it has begun.
heep:heep:
• I define empire as a hierarchically organized political system with a hublike structure—a rimless wheel—within which a core elite and state dominate peripheral elites and societies by serving as intermediaries for their significant interactions and by channeling resource flows from the periphery to the core and back to the periphery.
• Continuous empires are tightly massed and, in all likelihood, territorially contiguous; discontinuous empires are loosely arranged and often involve overseas territories.
• The core elite’s rule of the periphery may be formal, involving substantial meddling in the personnel and policies of the periphery,
or informal, involving significantly less interference and control.
• Decay is the weakening of the core’s rule of the periphery.
• Decline is a reduction in the imperial state’s power in general and military capability in particular.
• Disassemblage entails the emergence of significant interperiphery relations and spells the end of empire as a peculiarly structured political system.
• Attrition is the progressive loss of bits and pieces of peripheral territories.
• Collapse is the rapid and comprehensive breakdown of the hublike imperial structure.
The floor is open and the floor is really cracking wide open under America's feet, I think...it has begun.
heep:heep: