When a superpower’s economy lags, hegemony becomes unsustainable.
In June 1897, Great Britain, at the apex of empire, organized an elaborate pageant celebrating Queen Victoria’s 60 years on the throne. The industrial revolution had turned a small island nation into an economic and military superpower. The writer Rudyard Kipling, one of imperialism’s greatest apologists, was asked to contribute an ode for the queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Yet far from boasting about the empire that Kipling adored, the poem he wrote imagined its eventual end. “Far-called, our navies melt away; / On dune and headland sinks the fire,” he wrote. “Lo, all our pomp of yesterday / Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!”
Much less humility was on display as the United States celebrated its 250th anniversary. “We will always be on top,” Donald Trump said in his July 4 speech. “We will never let our country fall.” Yet even as he insisted that U.S. global dominance will last forever, Trump is busily dismantling the very economic underpinnings that would ensure future American might.
