[Greybird]

Until the turn of the century I always gave the vigor and dominance of the American empire about another 20 years -- quickly gained and, in an age that's had Industrial and Electronic Revolutions, quickly lost. Unlike, say, Britain or Rome.

Now I wonder if it'll last the decade. Especially since we'll be occupying the Mideast for that decade. Against protests, I offer three words as counterargument: Germany, Japan, Korea. The legions haven't come home, and at this rate, they never will -- voluntarily. Afghanistan is well on its way to joining them on the list of might-as-well-be-permanent garrisons. Next year, Iraq.

[OfByForThePeople]

Germany, Japan, Korea, Afghanistan, then Iraq.

You left some others off the list, but you make a good point.

Cindye

[The Great Satan]

The legions haven't come home, and at this rate, they never will -- voluntarily. Afghanistan is well on its way to joining them on the list of might-as-well-be-permanent garrisons. Next year, Iraq.

You forgot Germany and Japan.

[11B3]

No, the author is obviously leaning way left. Using university "scholars" as the source for a screed like this is the sure sign of it. There isn't a conservative scholar vested in any of the leftist universities - Ivy league or not. They are simply the left's bastion, plain and simple.

America is only now becoming the 'empire' that our wannabe Euros to the north are talking about. Driving the stake through the heart of the UN is only a start - as is Iraq. There are going to be other temporary destinations in the War on Terrorism, some close by and others far away. China and Cuba come to mind.

Militarily, this author is obviously a Canadian. Few NATO nations make France look like a military juggernaut, either in attitude or hardware, but Canada does. The chances for a 'protracted war' in Iraq are about equal to that of the DemonRats obeying election laws. Doom and gloom using the reality challenged left as the source gives this one a 'Dry Heaves Alert'. No offense, Greybird, but I can understand your agreement with this one. Post anything positive about the US lately?

[patriciaruth]

Yes, the liberals and socialists are eventually going to pull us down into such moral degeneracy that God will no longer protect us.

But not on this watch.

Sodom only needed to find ten righteous men in order to survive. When "America" gets to that point, when there are no longer ten righteous men left, we won't be here and we won't care that the time has come, because it won't be America any longer.

It is our duty in this time to work to prevent that.

[mississippi red-neck]

This article is closer to being right than I know I want to admit. The last major military bill up was when Regan did it. In the past after each time the democrats where in office we would always have a good build up when the republicans took office. Eight ywers of neglect with clinton left us just a shadow of the armed forces we had. We have been declining since the sixties.

When we ordered the B-52 we ordered 600. The B-1 we had 76 and we just moth- balled half of them in the last six months. When we ordered The B-2 we where going to get 60 I believe, we cancelled half because of cost and ended up with 30. When Regan took office we had about 70 over sea military bases now I believe we are down to just 15.

We use to have an active Army for each section of the country four of them. Now we just have one active and half of it is made up of reserves. Our Navy fleet was reuduced by at least one-third in just 8 years of Clinton. I know we have good technology but most of our military planes are 30 years old and you can only recondition and update the same frames so many times.

Am I saying we are washed up, not hardly we still have the most powerful military in the world. But we are just a shadow of what we where even in the gulf war.The doctrine that we have to be able to fight two seperate wars has been done away with and while we are under a republican president.

When GW took office I expected a big build up and I think so did he. Then I heard we need to wait and do a study and then I heard we need a new type of military that is leaner ,lighter and more mobile. Sure we need to modernize but what I also afraid it means is we can no longer afford a large one. How can we when 2 of those B-2's cost us more than all 600 of the B-52's?

[general_re]

"The United States has been fading as a global power since the 1970s, and the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks has merely accelerated this decline." So says Immanuel Wallerstein, the Yale University political scientist who is by far the most outspoken member of this camp. A gravelly old contrarian with little time for the orthodoxies of the left or the right...

Bullshit. Wallerstein is a socialist, through and through - apparently having a new spin on socialism is enough to make you an independent-minded centrist in the eyes of the Globe and Mail. Which is, in turn, enough to reveal the worthlessness of this article - if the only people who can be found discussing the downfall of the US are the same people who have been (incorrectly) predicting it since the early 1970's, there's no particular reason to believe they're correct now, is there?

Wallerstein ought to title his next work "Still Wrong After All These Years"...

[Stirner]

On a post here the other day (which I can't find at the moment) I read the claim that, while the US spends 30% of the world's total on military expenditures, it spends 80% of the world's total on military research and development. The author's point, I believe, was that we are ahead of everyone else and, due to that R&D, pulling away. How does that fit in with "America in Decline"?

[mhking]

Let me offer you a new way of thinking about America: Over.

He's just jealous. Somebody give him some Kleenex.

[DugwayDuke]

Also posted on Lew Rockwell dot Com.

[hosepipe]

"a beneficial force of democracy and peace that we must join and support."

America is NOT a democracy.....duh!..
===================================================
"Socialism has a bad name in America, and no amount of wishful thinking on the part of the left is going to change that.... The words Economic Democracy are an adequate and effective replacement." Derek Shearer cited in Reason 1982

"...I would like to be clearly understood...we, the Soviet people, are for socialism.... We want more socialism and, therefore, more democracy." Mikhail Gorbachev

"The one thing everyman fears is the unknown. When presented this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of well being granted to them by World Government."
-- Henry Kissinger, Amiens, France, 1991

[Cacique]

btt

[FITZ]

If we could elect another Reagan type we could bounce back quickly. If Sanchez wins (rather--buys the election) in Texas then it might be over for the US. With California and Texas both becoming solidly Democrat I think we've lost.

[Pietro]

'...from respected political scientists on the Ivy League campuses"

Stopped reading right there at this oxymoron.

[Reagan Man]

>>>Is the American empire already over?

No Doug, it's not over. It's just starting!

>>>Now I wonder if it'll last the decade.

Stop wondering. It will outlast you, your children, your childrens children and so on and so forth.

Stop being so damn pessimistic, Greybird and a grab a new screen name. Make it "Redwhiteandbluebird".

Get a life!

A little optimism goes a long way. Geez.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

This kills me:

"This is not a fringe theory. It comes from within the United States, from respected political scientists on the Ivy League campuses."

Hey buddy (writer), "political scientists" on Ivy League campuses is the very bleeding definition of FRINGE THEORY!!!!!

Moron.

[Polybius]

In a forthcoming book, to be titled Decline of American Power, he describes his country as "a lone superpower that lacks true power, a world leader nobody follows and few respect...

Do we really want to be "followed" or "respected" by the castrated, peace-at-any-cost Euro-weenies, the primitive hoards of the "Arab street" or the burned-out Leftists that choke with jealousy at the mention of America's name?

When you are dealing with these kinds losers, it is far better to be feared than loved.

In regards to "true power", the author should tell us what nation, throughout the course of History, has ever been able to project it's power the way that the United States can to this very day.

Afghanistan was not a test of "true power"? Tell that to the corpse of the once mighty Soviet Union. What the Soviet Union of the 1980's could not accomplish next to it's own border, America accomplished in a few months from the other side of the Globe.

[nicollo]

The author's premise is wrong. Bad assumptions lead to stupid conclusions.

As pointed to here, Americans don't want an empire. When William McKinley had to choose between keeping an American force at Manilla - an accepted necessity - or taking the entire archipelago, he prayed to God for guidance.

Whatever God's feelings, McKinley made the logical military choice to occupy all the islands. Then he made the inspired -- and perfectly American decision not to colonize the territory. He would give it all the benefits of America, and when the populace was ready for self-government he'd let it go.

We kept Porto Rico for the exact same reason. The island simply fell into our lap. Down went the Spanish flag, and up the American, and the locals wanted it that way.

There's plenty to say of American imperialism, be it Dollar Diplomacy, territorial expansion, or whatever. None trump the essential and operative reason for American expansion: the democratic ideal. Any argument that ignores this fundamental purpose is flawed in that it studies effect not cause, and it sees only negative effects.

Another mistake, and it is sadly assumed by most Americans, is that we lost the Korean and Vietnam wars. Those were not wars, they were battles. We won the war. Leftists won't admit it, for they look upon Vietnam as the crux of the 20th Century, and admission that we won the Cold War destroys their argument and life views.

Lastly, what won the Spanish-American war was naval power. What wins similar wars today is air power.

America has every appearance of an empire. America seems to act like an empire. America has the capability of an empire. America is not an empire.

We'll keep fooling the rest of the world so long as individual Americans remain free to pursue happiness.

[Protagoras]

I think the US is on a downward spiral which has nothing to do with what the author talks about.

This countries' people and their elected officals have settled on a strategy which advocates that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence be ignored in favor of their pet issues.

Since the only thing that stands between the US and a banana republic are those documents and the ideas they represent, the demise of them shows the US to be moribund.

My two cents.

[Billthedrill]

Big topic. What we're really seeing here isn't the classic model of "empire" at all, IMHO, as many have noted. What it is, though, "ain't exactly clear."

It isn't, for example, based on control of foreign governments so much as a selective change of a small number that prove inveterately hostile or dangerous. Proof of this is the vigorous dissent to U.S. policy given daily by governments which, were they truly client governments, would be incapable of doing so - the list is long, including such old members as France, Germany, the Philippines, and Japan, and such new ones as Panama, Haiti, and Grenada. These are not clients, colonies, or puppets, nor are they part of an "empire" in the older sense.

It isn't, for another example, based on control of lines of communication (as the Athenian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and British empires were) and their exploitation for commercial purposes. If it were we certainly wouldn't be arguing about tariffs in the U.S., they wouldn't be necessary.

I'm not sure "dominance" is even the most accurate word. Perhaps "pervasiveness" or "ubiquity" might be more accurate. The mechanisms behind this are primarily economic and technological especially in terms of information and communications technology, and much of what passes for military dominance is, instead, a necessary consequence of the other two. Why else could a country with less than 1% of its population under arms be described as "imperialistic?" In what historical empire did the emperor ever have to take his case to his people and justify his actions to world opinion in order to stomp on an offender less than one-tenth his size?

If America is a bull in a china shop, at least let it be one that has learned to move carefully. But not to move at all is just as potentially fatal as thrashing about wildly.

[dixie sass]

Pinging thou.