The end of the empires that have dominated history has occurred with various warnings, and then materialized in symbolic passages that have functioned as watersheds. The last one, which many of us by age, have witnessed is the end of the USSR empire, which after countless creaks became symbolically evident in 1989 with the overthrow of the Berlin Wall. Fortunately it was not a bloody change with wars or destruction, but now we are witnessing the most nefarious consequences with fratricidal struggles between ethnic groups present in the same empire/nation divided by culture, language, ideological reference model and military support.
The question I am asking myself and the reader these days is whether, without fully realizing it, the same thing is happening with the empire. American or better yet, Yankee. This term, which is a somewhat ironic/derogatory nickname, connotes the economic, military, cultural, political and ideological hegemony that for about eighty years was exercised by nations in which the social component had a more or less direct derivation from the old British Empire. United States as a hub, but as a corollary many other nations from Great Britain to Canada, up to Australia. Non-Anglo-Saxon Europe was supporting in a sort of protectorate on a par with other nations such as Japan, South Korea and some South Americans.
This empire was and is political through the export of the democratic system, which is, as the aphorism goes, “the best of the worst forms of government”, but which, unfortunately, in recent years seems to succumb under the weight of populism. Economic hegemony could be undermined by the prospect of alternative currencies to the dollar planned by the BRICS countries and by the weight of very high public debts that are supported precisely because this currency is still hegemonic in international transactions.
The military supremacy in the face of “new wars” conducted in urban territories with new means no longer leaves the empire Calm. Above all, it is not clear what purpose thousands of nuclear bombs are for when “only” a hundred would be able to destroy life on earth for a few millennia. This is a “surplus” that does not provide security but, on the contrary, demonstrates how they are “unusable” weapons (let us hope), leaving free space for those who want to conduct conventional wars as happened in the burning Afghan defeat. Empires, like any living element, tend not to remain static but to live they must expand. The alternative to expansion is progressive drying up. We are witnessing that few new nations want to come closer to belonging to the Western empire.
The deepest crisis in my opinion is on the ideological-cultural level. For decades the West has represented a beacon of innovation, scientific research and freedom of thought. Fortunately, many excellences still remain in this area of development today, but cultural models and research and innovation centers can be glimpsed in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, the excessive power of the sales system at all costs has led the young Westerner to be subjected to billions of commercials during his childhood and youth. This bombing in the minds of our young people it becomes a source of destruction of the desiring function and manipulation of planning with respect to their own existence.
Of course, huge masses of people still want to go to the Western Empire and its offshoots to secure a better economic life for themselves, but many of them reject its values. When you are immersed in a historical change, presumably, you fail to see the most relevant elements that are in the making. At the same time, it can happen that certain difficulties are amplified. For these reasons, in me the doubts on certainties. However, I am interested in posing the question I formulated at the beginning of this post to the readers: are we really experiencing the crisis of the empire centered on the United States of America?
The electoral program of one of the two candidates for the future presidency, which includes the motto “America first”, seems to prelude a closure towards the rest of the world with the ulterior motive that everyone has to fend for themselves. A period of economic, political and military hegemony when it tends to crumble leaves a void in which, naturally, new national or supranational organizations are inserted which gradually tend to become hegemonic and to form a new empire. The second question that follows from the first is therefore: what other national or supranational structure can be imagined on the horizon as an alternative to the Yankee empire? Can we hypothesize a more widespread power structure among various groups of countries? Or is there instead a well-founded risk of disintegration resulting in local wars no longer kept under control by imperial power?
The adolescent phase of a boy’s life comes to mind. The power exercised, for better or for worse, by parents tends to be questioned. The adolescent no longer feels like following the father’s and mother’s instructions, but try to do it yourself. He has to face several risks that sometimes seem difficult to overcome. If all goes well he will no longer need the protective gaze of his parents but, in some cases, he falls prey to serious errors that lead to personal destruction (car accidents, drug use, fights) or serious difficulties (unwanted pregnancies, illnesses, trauma). The nations that slowly formed in that time span that we know from history books are like a teenager. Perhaps they can face the new world on their own without an empire to dictate the rules? Or would they still need an imperial structure to act as a parent to avoid more serious problems?
