Wither Rome and Britain. Wither America?

While it is true that nothing, including America, lasts forever, neither the fall of the Roman nor the British Empires is a very instructive example for America. The most obvious reason is that America is not an empire and therefore is not subject to internal divisions that makes the end of empires relatively easy. Similarly the U.S. does not have the kind of power multiplication that an empire has. The combination of easy collapse with rapid loss of disproportionate power is the result of empire and not likely in a nation-state.

The Roman Empire as a nation-state would have only consisted of the Italian peninsula. Even more restrictive, the Latin core of the nation would only have been the central third of Italy. By the end of the Republic, Italia was no longer the base of Roman power. Bereft of empire, Italia did not amount to much. The grain that fed the Roman masses was from Egypt and Africa, the various metals required for empire came from Hispania and Britannia, the trade and craft works that enriches a state occurred mostly in the Eastern Mediterranean. By the days of empire it is unlikely that Italians consisted of more than 10% of the peoples of the empire (around 5-6 million out of 50-60 million total). The power of Rome and Italy came from controlling all of these assets that existed in other lands. Although the Romans did uniformly and justly rule their empire, it was still an empire of separate peoples with their own traditions that fractured quickly under intense barbarian pressure.

The British Empire was similarly afflicted. Except for the short period after industrialization took hold around 1850, British power was directly tied to the empire. For example in 1900 the British only consisted of 41 million people out of the 400 million in their empire. Economically, Britain produced about $180 billion compared to around $260 billion for the rest of the empire. In neither case was Britain near a majority. Nor were the British much greater than the other great powers. Germany had 56 million people and a GNP of $175 billion, America 77 million and $320 billion, Russia 136 million and $110 billion, and the French had 39 million and $110 billion. Only the empire cause Britain to stand out in that crowd. The situation vis-a-vis the other great powers had worsened considerably by 1960 when the empire finally become too great a burden for the British. Given that it was an empire it easily dissolved into its constituent parts leaving the British greatly diminished in a short period of time.

America simply does not fit these templates. We are much more a single nation than either the Roman or British empires. We do not have a small core that rules over the rest of the nation. Our wealth is produced at home and is not dependent on the control of resources overseas. The United States is so much wealthier than any other nation that even a nightmare scenario like the secession of the southwest would not greatly alter the position of the remainder of the United States in the world. This year the U.S. economy will produce around $13.3 trillion. Even the loss of 25% (the southwest for example) of the U.S. would still leave an economy of $10 trillion, twice that of Japan's second place $5 trillion economy. Maybe things will be different in 2453 and America will at last fall, but it's nothing to worry about soon.

Primary Source: The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Paul Kennedy