(From YouTube)
Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback, Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic , talks about the similarities in the decline of the Roman and Soviet empires and the signs that the U.S. empire is exhibiting the same symptoms: over extension, corruption and the inability to reform.
Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a non-profit research and public affairs organization devoted to public education concerning Japan and international relations in the Pacific.
I was very fixed by this man's talk on, what he sees as, the inevitable decline of the USA. I was impressed and frightened by such a prospect. What would we do in Europe? Would it have a profound effect on us today with no Soviet threat?
Then I began to think on who would be the next big noise on the block (world trade wise) Surely they would make the same mistake. What surprises me about this is the fact that the USA has not had a particular long reign as the dominant power. Not even a hundred years. This man says that history moves faster now, but surely the US has got longer then this man speculates?
As he went on and began to compare what the US trade deficit is like and the ability to pay back, plus consuming more and more; I began to see his point of view. It certainly creates an eerie prospect because I, as a Brit, don't see the USA in any bad light the way some countries, he spoke of, do.
I think the UK and many European countries might suffer if the USA does decline. I wonder if all us Europeans might be sneaking off and getting into bed with China, India and Brazil. Perhaps one of these will be the big kids on the block in the future. The world has changed so much in the last twenty years.
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