Always appreciate your comments, friend.
That's just cyclical.
There are lots of Powers in the world, their is only one Superpower currently.
Pre WWI, Britian was a superpower. France, Germany, and the US were on the verge.
Between the Wars it was Britian and France but Britian and both were rapidly falling.
Post WWII, it was the US and Soviets
Then in 1989 the Soviets collapsed
Now there is only the US.
China is on the verge right now and is looking to get over the hump.
Britian is still on the verge but is definitely below superpower. They have some international influence but its not at superpower level. There is no political will in Britian to attempt to get back their either.
Before the 19th century it was Britian and France and before those two there was Spain.
Spain was the first superpower, they were shortly joined by the Dutch, who used trade to influence everyone for a time.
No superpowers before Spain becuase there was no global trade or transit
Portugal while a great power, was quickly supplanted by Spain when they fell into a personal union, uniting the crowns of Iberia. Beginning their long decline.
Portugal wasn't really a superpower.
We're obviously witnessing the warning days, if not the end, of the US hegemony.
I would argue it's still to be seen. Some people think reading the tea leaves that China is probably the next superpower. But they don't have an export based economy.
China is a rising power. It's unclear whether it'll actually become a superpower in the short or medium term, or whether it'll stagnate like Japan did in the 1990s. Regardless, China is a nuclear weapons state, a P5 member, it's experiencing a booming economy (though slowing as of late), and has a massive labor force and incredible natural resources.
China is the second largest economy in the world, its an emerging superpower and the United States is threatened by China. Otherwise it wouldn't be such a kerfuffle. Their economy, at least historically, has been growing faster than the United States and its entirely possible that it could continue to do so into the future. 1.4 billion people. The Soviet Union competed with the United States with a fraction of the population and a fraction of the economy. China is even in proximity to a huge part of the global population. They basically dominate Asia. Obviously the United States has its little alliances with Japan and Australia counter balancing the Chinese in that respect. But they're a big player in Asia. The most populace region and country in the world.
I mean China doesn't need to invade the United States. They just wanna control their region and they want access to Europe and Africa. I mean basically we kind of have them like pinned in on the water because you have the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan (possibly Vietnam) are all our allies so its like a ring around China. So we could really interrupt their sea lanes. And they get a lot of their oil obviously from the middle east and they have to ship it and there's a lot of narrow straights we could cut off. But once they develop that belt and road initiative they're like connected to Europe and Africa through pipelines and roads and stuff. I mean China doesn't have to spend as much as the US. They can't invade us. They should be able to control their area around China to free up their sea lanes. They don't need to conquer the United States to defeat us.
Parallels to Rome are a dime a dozen, I wouldn't bother listing any.
Rome fell in 476 AD by the the Germanic leader Odoacer. Rome was all about conquest, subjugation of lesser empires, slavery, and expansion.
All western Empires that have emerged since the fall of Rome have tried to evoke Rome, From Charlemagne to Hitler, and from the the Russian empire to the British. Dominant countries rise and fall there is nothing new about that, it happened for millennia before Rome and it will happen for millennia after the USA. If anything the USA has more in common with the British Empire. Private corporations, like the British East India company, backed by the military resources of the state.
I'd say that the first era of the United States, assembled following the American Revolution, lasted from 1788 to 1860. The second era, assembled following the Civil War and Reconstruction lasted from 1860 to 1932. And the third American era, assembled during the New Deal and the civil rights eras lasted from 1932 until today.
When the original constitution was written the country only had 13 colonies. Since then the constitution has been amended 27 times and has added 37 states. The country over time has expanded to reach across both sides of the north american continent and become the most powerful military and economy on earth since ww2. Black Americans couldnt vote until 1868, and even then women still couldnt vote until 1920 so thats half the population couldnt vote until 100 years ago. The government went from elected entirely b a minorit of the population, to elected by half the population, and then everybody over 18, becoming a representative democracy. Before 1920 you couldnt call the usa a representative democracy, thats a massive change. The supreme court was created with the Judiciary Act of 1789 and had its first assembly in 1790, 14 years after the country was founded.
Marbury vs madison in 1803 established the principle of judicial review in the united states and defined the boundaries between the separation of powers of the govt. The supreme court went from irrelevant to the ultimate say over the law of the land. Congress was the dominant branch of govt until the 1930s. Since then the executive branch with the president has been most powerful with greatly expanding executive orders. Franklin Roosevelt was elected 4 times and enacted the new deal and led the country through ww2. Presidents are only able to run two terms
The US does have corruption but those problems are not as massive a scale as ancient Rome had. You should remember that while Congress is famous, most state legislators and municipa counci ors and similar officers are not ver rich but are still vitally powerful. The bribes that Romans paid was a far larger part of their daily life, even bribing ordinary officials. It is rare in the US to bribe the official you particularly deal with as an ordinary person.
Roman epidemics could kill a quarter of the population like in the plague of Justinian, not even the Spanish flu did anything like that (about 0.6% of the population killed) and was 40 times less deadly as hard as that might be to believe, and the Spanish flu was twice as deadly by % of population as COVID in America in about half the time, and the vast majority of American children live to adulthood and the average life expectancy is over 75, close to triple the Roman life expectancy.
Remember too that plebeian was not a word used in the empire and late republic to describe rich or poor, just by birth according to aristocratic families, but not necessarily the wealthiest. Most American senators are far from the richest people in the country.
The US had a civil was and it was about slavery. Rome had three slave uprisings in the late Republic alone.
Just because it's a Western country that likes to expand and use Roman imager (like the eagle, the mottos like Semper fi, buildings etc) doesn't mean that it's the true successor or inheritor to Rome. But we could argue that it is an inheritor in the sense that Europeans founded it and they were Europeans influenced by Roman culture, but tbf you could make that argument with most of today's Europe too.
The founding fathers certainly considered the Roman Republic (not so much it's successor, the Roman Empire) an important historical inspiration when they were setting up the US and there are indeed similarities, both intentional and accidental, but there are also vast and profound differences.
There are some similarities but no we are very unlike Rome in many, many important ways. The world is also so different now. There are superficial similarities, but belief systems are so fundamentally different today that it's impossible to make a comparison of culture.
The stock market imploding is not a great indicator of economics resilience, I'd say. It's more of an indicator of investor confidence. Economics resilience is best measured by PMI, GVA, per capita GDP (PPP), employment rates and jobs growth.
Currency/FX, reserves, BOP, IR, trade, etc.
US stock market is 60% of VT. And yes, industry focused people like Trump use it as a benchmark.
I can speak more on this but that's enough for now.
The US has all the ingredients to remain the dominant superpower for centuries to come (at least 100 years), but they also have all the ingredients for civil war.
I do not know if the US will retain its sole superpower status or whether we will have to share that with China, but under Biden/Trump I have my doubts.
Where is Mr. German Man (
@noname223)
and that
@Blurry_Buildings fellow?
