NationStates Jolt Archive

I have an essay "To what extent is the notion of empire still relevent in modern international relations" which is I think a subject that would greatly interest the populus of NS general. I would therefore like to discuss the following

- What makes an empire?
- Do you think Empire is a relevent concept today?
- Would you consider the US or EU or other nation/group of nations a contemporay Empire?

I think the modern term of empire has changed somewhat, and with it the idea of imperialism. While in the past control was maintained with armies, today control can be made through debt, capitalism is inherent in empires.

This is not NS homework help.

History has shown us that empires rise...and fall, irrelevant to how long they ruled or how powerful they were. The U.S. is an empire, but not in the usual sense. It has the potential power to destroy half the world with one click of the button, and the potential to invade several countries at once while conducting secret operations under other's noses, but like all empires, the U.S. will fall. Rome, the Ottomans, Egypt, India, China, the Mongols, the Russians (or actually the U.S.S.R.) the Aztec, the Inca, Portugal, the Spanish colonial power, France, Nazi Germany, Poland, Austria, Sweden, Persia, Macedon, the British Empire ("the sun never sets on the British Empire") - they all rose and fell, according to history's rule. The U.S. is simply next. We shouldn't be surprised. It may take years or decades, or if we're real good, centuries, but the United States will fall. Don't think of me as an anarchist or anything like that-it's just common sense. There are many reasons for the decline of the listed empires. Those empires usually got their power and might through war and conquest. Greed might have led them to chew more then they could swallow. Also, hard feelings and an excess of slavery might have led to rebellion and civil war. Then there are outside invaders who destroy the empire. For example, take Rome. They had all those problems-countless civil wars, Germanic tribes,Huns, other barbarians,Persians,Carthage(at first),etc. were a major threat. Also, the sheer size of the empire was too great-it just collapsed onto itself. Of course, due to the fact that they had some good emperors near the end, the Romans took in common sense and split their empire. The Western half was destroyed quickly, but the Eastern managed to preserve itself for over a thousand years. Rome also had bad rulers-and that is something that has brought many a great nation down.

As for the EU-they are not an empire. They pretend to wield power, but that is only because they have many nations inside the EU. However, those nations although in the same organization are not necessarily best friends. They are peoples of different cultures, languages, and should anything drastic happen in Europe, the EU will fall apart, and Europe will either become a battlefield, or an indifferent and irrelevant pawn in the game between what is left remaining of the U.S., Islamic jihadists and other Middle Eastern radicalists, China, India, and maybe, just maybe, Japan. Now, nukes are out of the question. I think we already know, that should a nuclear war start out, "the next will be fought with sticks and stones"(A. Einstein). However, as terrorists are becoming extremely confident, and China, Japan, and India will have hard feelings towards each other (they already have), then it will be a war.:mp5: A war in which we must descend to that lower level of civilzation, of primal instincts, in which the whole world hangs on a thread. Many thought that World War II was the end of the world. They were wrong. But not too wrong. In fact, they were only off by one digit, because World War III will be the end of the world. That is why the world battle between today's superpowers must be a peaceful one, or something very, very, very drastic must be done.

So those are my views on "empires" in the world. I guess it was a little off topic:p

An Empire as has been understood, in the western conception at least, to be a central state with strong military and industrial capabilities that directly administers a large group of other nations around the periphery. The last true example of an Empire ceased to exist on Christmas in 1991.

The United States is not an Empire. It is, admittedly, a unipolar power with tremendous military and industrial strength, but it does not administer other nations directly (or indirectly, save only Iraq). Uniquely, the US has managed to achieve a sort of pax Americana without having directly controlled other states. Instead by offering incentives to play nice, the US and the western powers have managed to develop a system that has some characteristics of Empire, but is decidedly not an Empire.

The world is currently in a non-imperial phase, as most of the peoples of the world have a reasonable level of self determination. With the increasing proliferation of nuclear weapons, the development of Empire becomes increasingly difficult. At the same time, the openness of the system, and increasing reliance on international institutions is increasingly making states interdependent and reliant on each other.

Short of a major revolution in international politics in which nuclear weapons were to cease to be important (unlikely to happen) or the US and the EU were to change their anti-Imperial policies, there is virtually no likelihood of an Empire in the classic sense arising anytime soon.

This is not NS homework help.

No, but I think its an interesting political/historical discussion which is why I choose to write my coursework on it, and why I bought it here for discussion

No, but I think its an interesting political/historical discussion which is why I choose to write my coursework on it, and why I bought it here for discussion
I agree,

but you could have created the discussion without the homework help part.