Great response.Ian wrote:But what is American culture, anyway? The US is a nation of immigrants, churned together over generations and coming out as its own thing - upon which the rest of the world "copies", as you put it.Audley Strange wrote:Whereas most empires have traditionally been ruled overtly from the central ruling class of a territory, either monarchs or theocrats or politicians. That definition cannot be used in the case of the U.S. which is why many people will deny it has imperial ambitions. In that respect they are right. I don't think the American government ever had ambition to rule the globe from the centre, not even when they had competitor on the ideology market. Rather than invade with armies (though they have been fond of that.) They left it to "business interests" who bombarded the world in a shock and awe of media, fast food outlets and opportunities to turn themselves into copies of the States. An infection rather than an invasion, though I think the term unfair because I don't think their actions were considered to be actively detrimental, but it sought a corporate monoculture that everyone did or wanted to buy into. That I guess is what people consider "American Empire". Though the hundreds of bases globally does make the whole Pax Americana seem a bit off.
Problem is now that's unravelling, people are blaming the political sphere for not taking enough charge and of colluding with the business interests. Which they are quite right to do, they were. Problem is, while everything was rosy, the public generally were quite happy to mandate them to do so, even though there were enough warnings over decades for everyone to take some heed of.
Really I don't see it changing dramatically. Sate the liberals with some shiny things and they'll stop trying to mobilise the left wing. Same old Same old.
The "hundreds of bases" quote always puts me off though. Not to say that the US doesn't maintain a solid capacity for global power projection - it does, but there are only a handful of major overseas bases worth discussing at once. To get to the "hundreds" figure, one needs to count up every far-flung sigint station and marine garrison inside various embassies, etc.
Anyway, I don't know when "everything was so rosy" - for ten years in between the Cold War and 9/11? Also, call me crazy but I don't see anything unravelling. I see little more than a hiccup, along the lines how the US felt about its place in the world in the 1970s. Some malaise, some resentment, some unappreciation, some regret, etc. But the idea that the US is in decline I quite honestly find silly. If nothing else, the US will continue to dominate most of the 21st Century because it's the least-fucked of everyone else. Key to this premise: the US is the only major power that will not experience a serious demographic crisis (other than the temporary retiring-baby-boomers squeeze) over the next couple generations. Most of Europe is already bracing for this. Russia and Japan will face it particularly hard. And China has looming problems than most people are barely even aware of; within another ten to twenty years at most, that country is going to be in very, very deep shit (I think I've written about this extensively elsewhere before, so I don't want to ramble on too much here. If anyone of the "China is the next superpower" mindset really wants to press for details, let me know). The US meanwhile has no real shortage of sub-retired workers, nor living space, nor resources (oil, you say? the oil age won't last but another couple decades), nor intellectual capital, nor advanced technology, nor attraction for immigrants, nor entrepreneurship, nor military power - most notably the power to dominate the global commons. Shipping is still as crucial to national dominance as it was in Admiral Mahan's day if not more so, and the US Navy rules every ocean in the world: "it's battle fleet is as strong as the next 13 navies combined, 11 of which belong to allies and partners" (a quote from Robert Gates). And as it has been true since the time of Themistocles: "he who controls the sea controls everything".
//End rambling train-of-thought.//
I'm not convinced that the U.S. in its current state could simply be considered a nation of disparate immigrant cultures and would suggest that it is basically a Anglo/Germanic European Culture with some "local" flavour exported from the more catholic Latin Europe but with a lack of hierarchical social strata that traditional Europe endures. However they are both essentially liberal representative democracies underpinned by similar historical and mythical narratives.
As for "everything being rosy" I'd say that the majority of the cold war had fizzled out by the late 70's leading directly into the shift from industry to finance based economies which developed under Thatcher and the Reaganomicon. That's not to say I think that everything was rosy, just that the public loved the illusion of lower taxes and decent public services that such an ideology was seemingly providing.
Unravelling? Politically more than economically, I think, the States are seemingly, from an outsider's P.O.V. becoming increasingly independently minded and distrusting of the Federal Government. I can see that escalating to the point where the States are not as United as they claim. I'm not sure if secession is actually on the cards, but the rift between ideological stances in your country does seem to be widening, with only hysterical noisemakers screeching their increasingly irrational slogans and drowning out any civil debate. Something's got to give.
Your last points though rather emphasise the concept of Empire a tad, no? and if you consider that the U.S. rise or "Empire" was fuelled by oil, how do you think its going to keep up when its ran out?
