After empire, then what?

On his excellent blog, The Futurist, Stephen Aguilar-Millan writes:

Let us suppose, just for the sake of argument, that America has an Empire. There are many who deny this, but let us just leave that objection aside for the moment. Let us also suppose that the American Empire (which we have just assumed to be) is in long term decline. Once again, there are those who argue that the current malaise experienced by the US is temporary, and that we should expect a resurgence of America over the next decade or so. By assumption, we have an American Empire in decline. If so, then the interesting question is whether or not that Empire is due to collapse.

We have written before about the 'America as empire' concept on this blog, so I was intrigued to see what Stephen would say. He continues:

It is not necessarily the case that imperial decline and regime collapse are inevitable. History can inform us on this. During the First World War, the locus of the world economy shifted westwards, from Europe to the United States. By 1918, three of the four European Empires had collapsed (the Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian), along with the Ottoman Empire, which was more Asian than European in its nature. Only one Empire remained in Europe -- the British Empire. And yet, the First World War had dealt a fatal blow to the British Empire, as witnessed by the flawed return to the Gold Standard in 1925. It took a further forty years for the British Empire to unwind fully.

This is very similar to what I wrote not long ago about shifting International Orders. It looks like Stephen and I are thinking along the same lines. He goes on to explore the question of whether the eventual U.S. imperial decline will result in a hard or soft landing:

[W]e have two models of imperial decline -- the hard landing of the Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian Empires, which involved the collapse of the respective regimes; and the soft landing of the British Empire, which involved a prolonged withdrawal from imperial status. The dangers of a hard landing would include the establishment of extreme governments (Stalin in Russia, Hitler in Germany) and the possibility of the anarchy of Central Europe, which directly paved the way for the atrocities recently seen in the former Yugoslavia. History tells us that a hard landing would be best avoided.

If so, then we might ask how a soft landing could be achieved.

You can read the rest of the article at his site. But essentially, Stephen recommends a move towards "financial integration of the US and East Asian economies." I'd agree with him on that as a good first step, especially if it is is coupled with or at least leads toward common security agreements.

Our concern, however, is that the advent of molecular manufacturing could undo whatever integration is achieved.

International peace, security, and stability all are strengthened by economic ties; financial integration and interdependence tend to promote harmony and tolerance. But if we experience a hard takeoff scenario for advanced nanotechnology -- a sudden and uncontrolled flood of products -- the resulting economic disruption might then destabilize international relations to the point where a hard landing for the former American empire is only one part of very bad outcome.

To avoid that, CRN urges strong consideration of a global treaty agreement for cooperative development and administration of molecular manufacturing.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics blog

Comments

[Nato Welch]

http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/fiction/bs01.htm

"Kiosk" is a new novella by Bruce Sterling on this very topic. He likens the disruptions of fabricators to the disruptions caused by the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and to prospective disruptions caused by oil depletion.

Of course, Kiosk's "fabrikators" are neither atomically precise nor completely recursive (there are small, critical components that aren't fab-fabable), but I think the story makes a plausible case for the disruptiveness of even basic automated fabrication capabilities.

[dibyadeep]

Perhaps the new empires would be of corporates, not nations...in that case its immaterial which country you belong to...