England? How about the rest of the world!
History has a way of being self-correcting. Look at all the great empires back to the dawn of civilization.
Babylon/Mesopotamia. That's Iraq now.
Ancient Egypt. The people were overrun by Muslim Arabs. Their descendants are the Ethiopians and Copts, and aside from the Pyramids, their civilization survives only in museums.
India. 'Nuff said.
Persia. That's Iran now.
Phoenicia. Anybody know where that is?
Greece. Now one of Western Europe's poorest nations.
Mongol. They made the mistake of conquering China and it swallowed them up like all its conquerors.
Olmec/Maya/Aztec. Spain (see below for their turn) did them in.
Inca. Spain got them too.
Rome. Ferraris are pretty cool.
Spain. Its former colonies make more news that Spain does.
Ottoman. Only Turkey remains.
Netherlands. Who?
Austro-Hungary. WWI was the end of them.
France. Conquered by Germany twice.
Third Reich. Cut in two for everyone's safety, and only recently allowed to reconnect.
England. With the technology of full-rigged ocean-going ships they cut a wider swath than their predecessors, but many of them had much longer reigns, like Egypt and China. England, back to its original borders, lives on, possibly to serve as a humble reminder of the transitory nature of greatness. It is arguably the proudest of the remnants of the old European-based empires... or perhaps it only seems that way to us Americans, who will forever cherish Dear Mother England no matter how tattered her housedress becomes.
USSR. Seemed like forever to those of us who lived through it, probably because they had nukes, but when it fizzled it really fizzled.
All of these empires had their day and then sank into the sunset. Some, like Greece, survive as humble shadows of their former selves. Others, like Egypt, were obliterated and different people live there now. That just seems to be the way history works. What goes up must come down, and what goes around comes around.
To get back on topic: The English (don't call them Britons, those were the original Celtic people of Great Britain whom the Anglo-Saxon invaders drove into Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany 1500 years ago) had their turn, during a very interesting historical era that allowed them to really mess with the nations they occupied, contaminating their culture, religion, technology, language, and even the shape of their national borders. But they too have passed.
I've overlooked a few long-gone empires, but we've gotten to the present and there are only two empires that haven't crumbled -- yet. Both of them seem ignorant of the old adage, "Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." One is uniquely ancient, one is an intemperate upstart. Both have recently set out on paths that seem deliberately chosen to increase the chances of failure.
Talking about China and the USA. China's experiment with communism has been just as ruinous as Russia's. Perhaps their willingness to compromise on a system of despotic quasi-capitalism will bail them out for a while. The Three Gorges Dam -- a Third World civil service project staffed by foreign mercenary engineers and supervised by communist managers -- how can it possibly hold water? If it collapses it will take the entire country with it and possibly the entire East Asian economy.
America's sudden emergence as the One Superpower is apparently not something we were ready for. Our political leaders don't know what to make of it. Our industrialists were caught during a particularly embarrassing loss of long-term planning ability. The citizenry, after two generations of New Math, Transactional Analysis, Social Promotions, and Remedial English for College Freshmen, has lost its attention span and its ability to reason. It's hard not to wonder whether this is the twilight of the dear old United States.
Does anybody have a clue about what might happen next?
