Niall Ferguson: Empires Fall Abruptly, And The American Empire Is On The Brink

The Business Insider ^ | 7-29-2010 | Gregory White

[blam]

Niall Ferguson: Empires Fall Abruptly, And The American Empire Is On The Brink

Gregory White
Jul. 29, 2010, 10:11 AM

Niall Ferguson, writing in The Australian, believes that the American Empire could be on the brink of extinction. His theory, based on a historical critique of how empires fracture and fall, notes the fiscal instability of the Hapsburg Spanish, Bourbon French, and British Empire prior to their falls.

Ferguson then notes that the American Empire could be next, not just because of the size of its debt, but because of the size of payments needed to service that debt. He suggests that debt servicing costs, specifically interest payments, could rise above that of defense spending within the next decade.

And that's where it gets frightening for Ferguson, who notes that those cuts in defense spending would lead to the decline of the U.S. Empire, a withdrawal from portions of the world, and the expansion of China in the Asia-Pacific region.

Further from this, its quite obvious that this could have an impact in multiple areas the U.S. currently dominates. An example would be South Asia, where India and Iran could rise to compete over dominance in Afghanistan and Pakistan. China could even play there too.

[snip]

[MNJohnnie]

America is not an empire. So this qualifies as an epic fail on Ferguson’s part.

[jveritas]

They have been saying this crap since 1946. The US will remain the dominant world super power for many centuries to come. There is not one single nation or group of nations who can take our world supoer power position not even in many centuries from now.

[Pessimist]

Sounds believable to me.

Eventually (within a decade?), I expect China to flex some muscle. Maybe take Hawaii “in partial repayment of our debt”, etc.

Think the world would care? I don’t. Think someone like Obama would respond militarily when we’re “on the ropes” already? I don’t

Maybe that would embolden Russia to take Alaska too.

It seems like empires erode around the edges first.

Hopefully we’ll all be gone by then....

[NeoCaveman]

True.

No empire ever had the number of bases in the number of countries that we do.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Insofar as an “empire” is a macro protection racket, I’d say we don’t fit the category. We don’t menace those we claim to protect, and indeed we get a mighty poor return on our efforts.
Moreover we’d be in a lot less economic misery if we cut off the foreign aid we throw around.

[NeoCaveman]

Eventually (within a decade?), I expect China to flex some muscle. Maybe take Hawaii “in partial repayment of our debt”, etc.

I've been thinking we should give them California in exchange for debt forgiveness. Then they can fight it out with the Mexicans who think they own it.

[9YearLurker]

Not under President Palin’s plan.

[FrankR]

Cute little article Nails...but, America is NOT an empire...it's a Republic.

EMPIRE
noun: a group of countries under a single authority ("The British empire")
▸ noun: a monarchy with an emperor as head of state
▸ noun: the domain ruled by an emperor or empress
▸ noun: a group of diverse companies under common ownership and run as a single organization

The founders were very wise in preventing elected leaders from becoming dictators by putting the people in charge - if America ever falls it will be ONLY because here people had neither the conviction nor the courage to save her.

[Le Chien Rouge]

Not an empire...but I could see several states splitting from the union when the federal government goes into it’s routine of:

‘It’s not fair that Texas isn’t broke and California isn’t....spreading the wealth equally throughout the states is not only patriotic but good for the USA”

[combat_boots]

This book is so hard that I can’t believe I read it (all those years ago), but here’s a link that helps you search. Just an FYI:

“The ‘Best of’ Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”
http://www.his.com/~z/gibbon.html

Free downloads (in volumes no less)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gibbon/index.htm

There’s a rather sappy movie of it with Sophia Loren, Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd, among others. Incomplete but OK, as far as these things go. Great scenery.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

To the extent he focuses on debt service, that is not fatal. Think Britain in the 1700s when half its budget went to debt service and that was an age when they built the launch pad to a huge and powerful empire. Having said that, we are a in a dangerous spiral of citizens voting themselves government handouts on the backs of the “rich.” That is not sustainable.

[TheRightGuy]

It seems like empires erode around the edges first.

the mescans already control parts of arizona

[Outlaw Woman]

That message hits the bullseye. I’d like to copy that if you don’t mind. It’s message is deadon; “they can only take our free speech if we choose to shut up”

More people need to get a grasp on that. Another thing, tyranny can only take root when people cooperate. If businesses and people would refuse to ‘play along’ the outcome will be much different than the marxists plan.

[MNJohnnie]

The fundamental difference is between having bases the natives help pay for (US) and administering colonies which cost the mother country gobs of money (All the empires cited by Ferguson).

The USA is not an empire. To try and force the data to fit an ideological based set of opinions is the reason this argument always fails.

[GonzoGOP]

fiscal instability of the Hapsburg Spanish, Bourbon French, and British Empire prior to their falls.

I'm going with Epic (or at least Historical) Fail based on these examples.

Hapsburg = Had been a fiscal basket case for centuries. Only fell because it was crushed by foreign enemies in WWI.

Spanish - Started to fall apart when they lost a war to England in the 1588 but didn't lose the last vestiges of the empire until the US took away PR, Cuba and the PI in 1898. The better part of four centuries hardly constitutes a rapid fall.

Bourbon - Empire didn't fall, just had a change of leadership. Napoleon inherited the French Empire from the Bourbons. He lost it because of military defeat. So yes if you are overrun militarily an empire can go away rather rapidly. But that isn't what the author is talking about.

British Empire - Lets see lost their most valuable colonies in 1776, but didn't lose the last until the return of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China in 1997. Once again a 200 plus year decline is hardly sudden.

[Outlaw Woman]

There’s also another good book that describes what leads to the ‘fall’ of great ‘empires’... The Holy Bible

[Vanders9]

No Im afraid it doesn't count as an "epic fail on Ferguson's part", at least not for that reason. The point is that although America is a republic not an "empire", it has a lot of imperial attributes. America is very aggressive economically and culturally, and you do maintain large standing military forces at strategic places around the globe in order to ensure that things get done the way you want.

And under the the inept guidance of the blessed one currently esconced in the Whitehouse, that hold is beginning to quiver.

[Vanders9]

People in Britain were saying the same thing re their empire in 1910.

[FrankR]

Be my guest, the message needs to be spread far and wide. Thanks for the compliment.