America Is Not Rome — The Outcome of Imperial Overstretch
The history of the United States of America in the 20th century is like a tragic comedy. The first act was the period of isolation before and after WWI, during which America did its best to stay separate from Europe and quietly acquired an empire in the Pacific and Caribbean. The second act was WWII, when America realized the dangerous error of her ways. The third act was after WWII, when America found Britain and France too exhausted to continue with the burden of world leadership thus leaving America alone with the Soviet Union and a shattered world between them. The fourth act was post-fall of the Iron Curtain, when America stood alone unchallenged with the world at her feet.
As the new millennium dawned, political speculators such as Francis Fukuyama went as far as to proclaim ‘the end of history’. Fukuyama believed that the lopsided power balance in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union was destined to usher in a permanent Pax Americana. The balance of power is indeed incredibly lopsided: American military spending dwarfs the next ten contenders combined with 43% of the world expenditure on armaments! America began the 20th century shunning great power politics and ended the century as its supreme advocate. Despite the irony we should not be surprised; great power politics is easy when there is only one great power.
There has never been a geopolitical situation like the present. America is the most powerful empire this world has ever seen. All countries are within her sphere of influence; all business is her business. As a result of the centrality of America in the world system and her overwhelming influence on all modern organizations, many have compared America to her historical motivator: the Roman Empire. Like Rome in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, America today is suffering from imperial overstretch; her economy is heavily indebted, her people are demoralized, respect for her power is crumbling, and the barbarians are howling at the gate.
With the inevitable resurgence of Chinese power, the fifth act in the drama of American Empire has begun. The unipolar global hegemony which America has enjoyed for the last two decades is slipping away and would-be rivals have taken note. Between their new aircraft carriers and pop-up island bases the Chinese want the Americans out of their backyard; the South China Sea is named that way for a reason. American politicians have also taken note, as reflected by their dangerous rhetoric promising a return to greatness. How much longer will we pretend that we are living in an American world? How much longer before the Americans try to reassert what they think is theirs?
At the ‘end of history’ 25 years ago, economists speculated that the peoples of the world, particularly the Chinese and Americans, are now too intertwined to allow for a status quo-shattering war. The same was said of Germany, France and Britain even as the armies were mobilizing in August 1914. Let us not delude ourselves with the same formulaic economic determinism which was so catastrophically wrong a hundred years ago. Economics are influenced by human events, not the other way around. Anyone who thinks that the interdependence of trade will prevent world conflict in the future has failed to learn the lesson of WWI: just because it is a foolish idea does not mean we will not talk ourselves into it. Nowadays the stakes are even higher: Mutually Assured Destruction is not the same thing as Mutually Assured Deterrence.
With all of the similarities between the American and Roman empires, it is tempting to characterize the American peak at the end of the 20th century like the Roman peak in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE and conclude that a subsequent and similar decline is inevitable, but the buck stops here. Rome was a continental power at the heart of a land empire in a time when primitive technology allowed for human civilization to exist in discrete entities. When the Roman Republic conquered Carthage in the 2nd century BCE Han China did not notice. In contrast, America is a naval and air empire at the heart of the global economic system. Anyone who attacks America will in turn harm themselves. As stated above this does not render America impervious to attack but it reduces potential gains for the aggressor and ensures that if America goes down, we all go down together.
Lastly and most importantly, America constitutes a significant chunk of a resource-rich continent alone with Canada and Mexico and with an ocean on either side. If the British learned anything during their thousand-year experiment with island existence, it was the lesson that oceans make the best neighbors. The Gauls, Visigoths, Vandals and Ostrogoths who sacked Rome attacked from the land. Anyone who wants to sack Washington (for the second time since 1814) needs to get past half of the world’s fleet of aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines first. America is a large, contiguous, homogenous and heavily armed nation-state secure from most foreign threats by the accident of geography. So long as she maintains a decisive lead in air and sea power, America can withdraw from her commitments and live well enough alone. Rome could not escape from the ruin of her own making, but America can enjoy the blessing of breathing space and therefore it is more likely that she will evolve rather than collapse. Any country with 300 million citizens, 10 million square kilometers and 5000 nuclear warheads is going to remain a force to be reckoned with for some time to come.
When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the western half of Europe plunged into a dark age that was only briefly rescued by Charlemagne 300 years later. Most of the European system could not survive without the Roman heart. America is probably not Rome, and for our sake let us hope that is the case. If America is Rome, then guess who is Gaul?
Samuel Buckstein
