The Chinese Empire Is Doomed To Go The Way of The American Empire
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No hegemon ever learns from the mistakes of its predecessors.
On the 30th of August 2021, Major General Donahue became the last serving American soldier to leave Afghanistan.
The image which has now gone viral several times over around the world, is being seen rightly or wrongly as the symbol of the irreversible decline of the American empire, the moment at which, the United States ceded its position as the world’s police man to the People’s Republic of China.
Thus far, a vast number of right wing commentators, obviously acting at the request of their paymasters, have whipped up a high degree of hysteria about President Biden’s decision and written quite incisively about what this means for the long term prospects of democracy, “western values and liberal interventionism” across the globe in the 21st century.
But despite the abundance of resources at our disposal, it’s extraordinary that the one thing which we have all failed to do is to pay great attention to history.
For it was George Santayana who said the following words:
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The British Empire and its role in creating the American monster
Even though it was well behind the likes of Portugal and Spain in the acquisition of foreign territories, Britain more than made up for lost time and over the course of two centuries, by engaging in wars with France and Spain and achieving strategic trade-offs, which led to the land swap deals with the Dutch and routing the French out of India and North America.
The loss of the war of Independence to America notwithstanding, Britain made up for this setback by acquiring more territory in Africa and Asia.
Just as it was with the Roman empire, Britain’s decline came not in one day, but by seriously overextending itself in a series of wars fought in the twentieth century. By the time Germany surrendered to the allies in 1945, Britain was completely spent as a global force. The turn of events led to the tidal wave of decolonization across Africa and Asia and more importantly, Britain’s loss of identity from which it has yet to recover.
