
 |
|
February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
|
| |
Jewish World Review
July 27, 2006
/ 2 Menachem-Av, 5766
How long will U.S. empire last?
By
Jonathan V. Last
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The end is nigh. That's the bad news. The good news is that the end of the American moment has been nigh for a long time but hasn't happened yet.
All good empires must eventually come to an end. The Greeks ruled their world for 450 years; the Romans ruled an even bigger chunk of the world for more than 500 years. The British empire - the first on which the sun never set - stretched gloriously from the mid-1600s to just after World War II.
The British empire was the last of the Old World empires to dissipate. The first World War ended the Habsburg, Hohenzollern and Ottoman empires; the second World War finished the French, Dutch, Belgian and Portuguese empires. But so strong is the imperial essence that even today, half a century after they gave up their mantle, the Brits still occupy an enormous - and outsized - part of the global consciousness. The imperial afterglow can last a very long time. Just ask one of your Greek friends.
Modern America is, as Niall Ferguson puts it, "a peculiar kind of empire." America is "vastly wealthy," Ferguson notes in his book "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire." "It is militarily peerless. It has astonishing cultural reach." Yet America undertakes military adventures only sparingly, and when it does so, has decidedly mixed results. Save a few small historical protectorates, we do not have territorial holdings. And we do not send forth large numbers of people to settle in distant lands.
Nonetheless, we are an empire. And as with all empires before us, our moment will someday end. The question is: How?
We used to know the answer for sure: The U.S.S.R. and the bomb. Every era gives rise to its own doomsday scenario, and during the Cold War we feared mutually assured destruction and nuclear holocaust. The culture was overflowing with movies such as "On the Beach," "Fail-Safe" and "The Day After"; the nuclear freeze movement was born, and the Doomsday Clock was started.
That apocalypse never materialized. After 1989, the focus turned to China, with book titles such as "The Coming Conflict With China," by Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, and "The China That Can Say No," by Zhang Zangzang and others. But China now seems so monstrously large as to be nearly ungovernable. Even if the country can be controlled, the Chinese have historically had regional, rather than global, ambitions.
After Sept. 11 of course, the end-of-the-world worries ran toward terrorism. Would it be a nuclear device in Baltimore's harbor, or perhaps a bioweapon plague, that brought an end to the American empire? Or maybe a small fire in the Middle East - say, a kidnapped Israeli soldier - might become the Archduke Ferdinand, setting off a regional conflagration that turned into a global clash of civilizations. Perhaps it will be the World War III that does us in after all.
Recent events certainly aren't encouraging on this score.
But before we begin polishing America's eulogy, there are two reasons to wonder whether perhaps the American empire could be endless, that it might stretch, asymptotically, out to the horizon.
The first is that, empirically speaking, our empire isn't very imperial. We have few land possessions outside our presently established physical borders. There are no colonies to rebel, no land or physical resources to lose. We have nothing of which to divest ourselves.
The second is that America is an ideological, not a geographic or ethnic, construct. Being an "American" means about as much as being a "New Yorker." You can be from Kansas or Puerto Rico or Indonesia, but once you move to the Big Apple, you're part of it.
It's the same with America.
"The United States," Ferguson notes, "is an importer of people. ... (A)n empire without settlers, or rather the settlers come to the metropolis rather than leave it for distant lands." We lure the world's elites to our shores with universities and shopping malls and an incredibly high quality of life. It's hard for other countries to get a leg up on us when we poach their best talent. We're a little bit like the New York Yankees in that way.
There is a large pool of study in the field of imperial autopsy, beginning with Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" and stretching to include Arnold J. Toynbee's "A Study of History," Correlli Barnett's "The Collapse of British Power" and Ferguson's own "Empire." The two principal causes of imperial demise are external events (such as war or plague) and internal decay.
Our control over the former is tenuous. We can act responsibly and wisely in foreign affairs and still not avoid conflicts or attacks. But the latter are wholly within our power to manage. If we bankrupt our economy or tear at the social fabric, if we make America a less attractive destination, either by not protecting ourselves well enough or by sacrificing too much in the name of security, then we endanger the future of our peculiar little empire.
The American moment may be destined to pass. But we shouldn't hasten it along. And the surest way to preserve an empire is to recognize its responsibilities and place in the world.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Jonathan V. Last is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Comment by clicking here.
© 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Tony Blankley
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Alan Douglas
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
Marybeth Hicks
David Horowitz
Jeff Jacoby
Renee James
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Ben Wattenberg
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

Mr. Know-It-All
Dr. Peter Gott
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
Tech Maven
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|