+1000 for the first part. But we look at America though American eyes. Hundreds of millions of people in South America, Middle East ect. would definitely consider the US an empire. Just because Canada has been off limits doesn't mean we don't throw around our military weight throughout the world.
Not sure why you didn't bother with China, as it was basically an Empire for much of its history. And IMO a much better comparison for the US than European and Middle Eastern empires. China dominated East Asia for thousands of years. Even when it technically was invaded(Yuan Dynasty and Qing Dynasty), the invaders actually were absorbed culturally by the natives. So the culture itself still continued over the millenniums. And despite a string of government corruption, opium, foreign colonization, internal strife, etc., over the past hundreds of years China recuperated quickly when it got its act together. IMO, the same is with the US. There are simply too many natural advantages America holds over other countries in terms of resources, location, domination over surrounding countries, etc. That it cannot possibly become "die off". Both America and China are vastly different from European and Middle Eastern empires in that they are simply too powerful in their area of the world. They simply have no natural enemies. If you think of how badly a shape China became in the latter stages of the Qing Dynasty, yet still managed to recover so quickly, it's the same with the US. No matter how badly Congress screw things up or people parroting Fox News like mindless drones, in the end the country itself will never lose its foothold on the global arena.
The USA is like the greatest international trader in the world, just like the other empires you left out such as Egypt and Great Britain.:grin: Why don't you just pick up a history book to find out. They all generally end the same way: war, famine, disease (plague), earthquakes. Here in America it will probably be the Yellowstone eruption. And the rest of its inhabitants: Rodney King.
I think from an outsider perspective, the questions isn't when, the questions is: what is the American government willing to sacrifice to stay #1? Just because the demotion is a case of ultimate certainty, doesn't mean people should accept any consequences of it.
When Russia and China get together and finally invade us. Suddenly 1940 France wouldn't look so cowardly.
Find out what? I asked when people think it will happen, not why.....Come on now, it's not like I'm asking this verbally, it's in text, if you don't understand, go back and reread it, sound out the words if it helps/
america as a nation is not going anywhere, but america as an idea is dead - we are a fascist nation that exists for the benefit of multinational corporations. our military is basically their enforcement arm. and we are absolutely an empire. just b/c we dont like to think of ourselves as one doesnt mean we are not. hundreds of bases and troops all over the world playing "team america: world police" = empire. imo, empires collapse b/c they overextend themselves abroad and clamp down on their people at home - we are doing exactly that. romans, aztecs, brits, soviets - we are following in their footsteps.
Not sure why we're obsessing on whether we're an empire. I think there are 2 closely related questions -- how long will we remain a hegemonic power and how long will we remain identifiably the USA. The American Empire relates to the first question, but this thread seems to be the about the second. No one thinks it will vanish. But what it means to be a country changes over time. And all these countries you think have always been countries have not been. Consider France, which is one of the most stable in your list. France was territorily mostly French after the Hundred Years War (15th century). But, they were adding pieces into the 19th century. Large areas of eastern France weren't annexed until Louis XIV and Louis XV. Some enclaves even later than that (Comtat Venaissin was annexed after the Revolution). Alsace and Lorraine were traded back and forth between France and Germany until World War I. Were the people in these areas "French"? Even in areas firmly under the crown, they had local cultures and allegiances that were stronger than any tie to the Kingdom of France. So much so that a plenthora of dialects made communication between Frenchmen from different regions difficult until long after the French Revolution. What France is hasn't always been there; it was built in the 19th and 20th centuries. Germany wasn't Germany until after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. It was just a collection of germanic principalities. Italy wasn't Italy until around the same time. Russia's borders have never stopped moving and they still deal with sovereignty issues today. Poland (which you didn't list) didn't exist in the modern era until 1918. In 1900, were the Poles Polish or were they Russian and German? The US will likely live on in altered forms for a very long time. But, with these same borders? With the same langauges, allegiances and political ideals? Will you still have people living in El Paso and in Seattle claim to be countrymen 200 years from now?
