Shish Boom Bah

I mean, let us be temperate. The "break-up of the Soviet Union," the most recent collapse of a major world empire, oft-cited for its rapidity, consisted of the devolution of some recently acquired (in historic terms) border regions, a decade or two of political upheaval, and the reconstitution of the core Russian state under a modified (not that modified) system of government. On the other end of the spectrum of imperial decline, you've got Rome, whose decline and demise occurred over a longer period of time than the period of European peoples inhabiting North America--including the Norse, if you want to be generous about the Eastern Empire. There are examples of the swift destruction of great empires--the Mongols; Alexander's Hellenic empire--but these were empires built on orgies of conquest, with no permanent political apparatus or governing structure to hold them together after the passing of the conqueror. The decline and fall of enduring empires isn't a poof-it's-gone scenario. As much fun as it is to cackle at the poor fortunes of an overextended America and doomsay its future as a political entity--and hell, maybe my dreams will come true and within my lifetime I can claim to be a proud resident of the Confederated City-States of the Middle Atlantic--but, you know the poetry about how the world ends, how the world ends, how the world ends.

Anyway, you've got guys like Robert Kagan cupping his balls ever tighter to his pelvis and bitching that some people don't think America is number one anymore, a minor misreading. Some people don't think America is going to remain number one for long. But again, let us be temperate. There are two concurrent strands here: the relative decline of American predominance and the relative rise of other loci of power, wealth, and political influence. The dogged insistence that the United States must, just must, remain the single, sole, unique, and unitary arbiter of global fortunes is fine locker-room talk among the dwindling, injured squad of rah-rah white-guy Patriot-Americans, but wishin' don't make it so. That sort of talk is extremely self-reflective anyway; imagine what a sad, small life it must be to structure your sense of self around an image of yourself as a carrier of national greatness. I know dudes who do that with the Steelers, and it's not pretty.

Oil resources will both complicate and catalyze the shifts in global fortunes, although ironically the current clusterfuck international economy may actually provide some respite from the fuel crunch, as slowing industries and diminishing personal fortunes substantially reduce demand. Nevertheless, in the foreseeable future, the lessened availability of easily portable energy seems destined to force nations to moderate their ambitions, and that in itself will likely mediate the ups and downs of national fortunes.