Empire Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Future=== In 1945, Historian [[Ludwig Dehio]] predicted global unification due to the circumscription of the global system, although he did not use this term. Being global, the system can neither expand nor be subject to external intrusion as the European states system had been for centuries: {{Blockquote| In all previous struggles for supremacy, attempts to unite the European peninsula in a single state have been condemned to failure primarily through the intrusion of new forces from outside the old Occident. The Occident was an open area. But the globe was not, and, for that very reason, ultimately destined to be unified... And this very process [of unification] was clearly reflected in both World Wars.<ref>Ludwig Dehio, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle, 1945, (tr. Fullman, Charles, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), p 234.</ref>}} Fifteen years later, Dehio confirmed his hypothesis: The European system owed its durability to its overseas outlet. "But how can a multiple grouping of world states conceivably be supported from outside in the framework of a finite globe?"<ref>Ludwig Dehio, "Epilogue," The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle, 1960, (tr. Fullman, Charles, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), p 279.</ref> During the same time, [[Quincy Wright]] developed a similar concept. Balance-of-power politics has aimed less at preserving peace than at preserving the independence of states and preventing the development of world empire. In the course of history, the balance of power repeatedly reemerged, but on ever-wider scale. Eventually, the scale became global. Unless we proceed to "interplanetary wars," this pattern can no longer continue. In spite of significant reversals, the "trend towards world unity" can "scarcely be denied." World unity appears to be "the limit toward which the process of world history seems to tend."<ref>Quincy Wright, ''A Study of War'', (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1964), p 92-93, 228, 234.</ref> The same "interplanetary" motif is present also in the [[The Anatomy of Peace|Anatomy of Peace]]: The era of outward expansion is forever closed. "Until and unless we are able to communicate with another planet, the theater of human history will be limited to geographically determined, constant and known dimensions." The historic trend of expansion will result in direct collision between the remaining powers. Multiplied by modern technology, the centripetal forces will accomplish what the greatest empires of the past failed. "For the first time in human history, one power can conquer and rule the world."<ref name="auto1"/> The "Father of American Anthropology," [[Franz Boas]], known for his [[historical particularism]] and [[cultural relativism]], outlined the "inexorable laws of history" by which political units grow larger in size and smaller in number. The process began in the earliest times and has continued almost always in the same direction. In the long run, the tendency to unification has been more powerful than of disintegration. "Thus the history of mankind shows us the grand spectacle of the grouping of man in units of ever increasing size." The progress in the direction of unification has been so regular and so marked that we must needs conclude that the same tendencies will govern our history in the future. Today the unity of the world is not less conceivable than the modern nations were in the early history. The practical difficulties that stand in the way of the formation of still larger units count for nothing before the "inexorable laws of history."<ref>Boas, Franz, (posthumous publication). ''Race and Democratic Society'', (New York: Biblo ad Tannen, 1969), pp 99-100.</ref> Five later scholars—[[Hornell Hart]],<ref>"The Logistic Growth of Political Areas," ''Social Forces'', 26, (1948): p 396-408.</ref> [[Raoul Naroll]],<ref>"Imperial Cycles and World Order," ''Peace Research Society'', 7, (1967): p 83-101.</ref> Louis Morano,<ref>"A Macrohistoric Trend towards World Government", ''Behavior Science Notes'', 8, (1973): p 35-40.</ref> [[Rein Taagepera]]<ref>"Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia." ''International Studies Quarterly'', 41/3, (1997): 475–504.</ref> and the author of the circumscription theory [[Robert Carneiro]]<ref>"Political Expansion as an Expression of the Principle of Competitive Exclusion", ''Studying War: Anthropological Perspective'', (eds. Reyna, Stephen P. & Dawns, Richard Erskine, Gordon and Breach, New Hampshire, 1994).</ref><ref>"The Political Unification of the World", ''Cross Cultural Survey'', 38/2, (2004), p 162-177.</ref>—researched expanding imperial cycles. All argued that these cycles represent an historical trend leading to world empire. Naroll and Carneiro also found this outcome "close at hand," c. 2200 and 2300 respectively. The founder of the [[Paneuropean Union]], [[Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi]], writing yet in 1943, drew a more specific and immediate future imperial project: After the War America is bound "to take over the command of the skies." The danger of "the utter annihilation of all enemy towns and lands" can "only be prevented by the air superiority of a single power ... America's air role is the only alternative to intercontinental wars." Despite his outstanding anti-imperialism, Coudenhove-Kalergi detailed: {{Blockquote| No imperialism, but technical and strategic problems of security urge America to rule the skies of the globe, just as Britain during the last century ruled the seas of the world... Pacifists and anti-imperialists will be shocked by this logic. They will try to find an escape. But they will try in vain... At the end of the war the crushing superiority of American plane production will be an established fact... The solution of the problem ... is by no means ideal, nor even satisfactory. But it is the minor evil...<ref>{{Cite book |author-link=Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi |first=Richard |last=von Coudenhove-Kalergi | title=Crusade for Pan-Europe |publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons |date=1943 |pages=297–298}}</ref>}} Coudenhove-Kalergi envisaged a kind of [[Pax Americana]] modeled on "Pax Romana": {{Blockquote| During the third century BC the Mediterranean world was divided on five great powers—Roma and Carthage, Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt. The balance of power led to a series of wars until Rome emerged the queen of the Mediterranean and established an incomparable era of two centuries of peace and progress, the 'Pax Romana'... It may be that America's air power could again assure our world, now much smaller than the Mediterranean at that period, two hundred years of peace...{{Sfn|von Coudenhove-Kalergi|1943|page=299}}}} This period would be necessary transitory stage before [[World State]] is eventually established, though he did not specify how the last transformation is expected to occur. Coudenhove-Kalergi's follower in the teleological theory of World State, Toynbee, supposed the traditional way of universal conquest and emphasized that the world is ripe for conquest: "...Hitler's eventual failure to impose peace on the world by the force of arms was due, not to any flaw in his thesis that the world was ripe for conquest, but to an accidental combination of incidental errors in his measures..." But "in falling by so narrow a margin to win the prize of world-dominion for himself, Hitler had left the prize dangling within the reach of any successor capable of pursuing the same aims of world-conquest with a little more patience, prudence, and tact." With his "revolution of destruction," Hitler has performed the "yeoman service" for "some future architect of a ''Pax Ecumenica''... For a post-Hitlerian empire-builder, Hitler's derelict legacy was a gift of the Gods."<ref>{{Cite book |author-link=Arnold J. Toynbee |first=Arnold J. |last=Toynbee |title=[[A Study of History]] |location=London |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=1954 |volume=IX: Contacts between Civilizations in Time (Renaissances); Law and Freedom in History; The Prospects of the Western Civilization |page=502}}</ref> The next "architect of a Pax Ecumenica," known more commonly as [[Pax Americana]], demonstrated "more patience, prudence, and tact." Consequently, as President [[Dwight Eisenhower]] put it, the NATO allies became "almost psychopathic" whenever anyone talked about a US withdrawal, and the reception of his successor [[John F. Kennedy]] in Berlin was "almost hysterical," as Chancellor [[Conrad Adenauer]] characterized it.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Marc |last=Trachtenberg |author-link=Marc Trachtenberg |title=A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 |location=Princeton, New Jersey |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |date=1999 |pages=152–153, 394}}</ref> [[John Ikenberry]] finds that the Europeans wanted a stronger, more formal and more imperial system than the United States was initially willing to provide. In the end the United States settled for this "form of empire—a Pax Americana with formal commitments to Europe."<ref>{{Cite journal |first=John G. |last=Ikenberry |author-link=John Ikenberry |title=Rethinking the Origins of American Hegemony |journal=[[Political Science Quarterly]] |volume=104 |issue=3 |date=1989 |page=399|doi=10.2307/2151270 |jstor=2151270 }}</ref> According to a much debated thesis, the United States became "empire by invitation."<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Geir |last=Lundestad |author-link=Geir Lundestad |title=Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945–1952 |journal=[[Journal of Peace Research]] |volume=23 |issue=3 |date=1986 |pages=263–267|doi=10.1177/002234338602300305 |s2cid=73345898 }}</ref> The period discussed in the thesis (1945–1952) ended precisely the year Toynbee theorized on "some future architect of a Pax Ecumenica." Dissociating America from Rome, Eisenhower gave a pessimistic forecast. In 1951, before he became President, he had written on West Europe: "We cannot be a modern Rome guarding the far frontiers with our legions if for no other reason than that these are not, politically, our frontiers. What we must do is to assist these [West European] peoples." Two years later, he wrote: When it was decided to deploy US divisions to Europe, no one had "for an instant" thought that they would remain there for "several decades"—that the United States could "build a sort of Roman Wall with its own troops and so protect the world."{{Sfn|Trachtenberg|1999|pages=147-148}} Eisenhower assured [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet first secretary]] [[Nikita Khrushchev]] on Berlin in 1959: "Clearly we did not contemplate 50 years in occupation there." It lasted, remarks [[Marc Trachtenberg]], from July 1945 to September 1994, 10 months short of 50 years.{{Sfn|Trachtenberg|1999|page=401}} Notably, when the US troops eventually left, they left eastward. Confirming the theory of the "empire by invitation," with their first opportunity East European states extended the "invitation."<ref>{{Cite book |first=Geir |last=Lundestad |author-link=Geir Lundestad |title=The United States and Western Europe since 1945: From 'Empire' by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=2005 |page=3}}</ref> [[Oswald Spengler]] envisaged the "Imperial Age" for the world in both senses of "empire," spatial (as a world-wide unit ruled by one center) and governmental (as ruled by Emperor). Published in 1922, ''[[The Decline of the West]]'' predicts the triumph of the strongest race in the fight for the whole world within "two generations" and of "Caesarism" over democracy "within a century."<ref>Spengler, Oswald (1922). ''The Decline of the West: Perspectives on World-History'', (tr. Atkinson, Charles Francis, (London: George Allen & Unwin LTD), vol II, p 416, 428-432, 464-465, 506-507, https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.264078/mode/2up?view=theater</ref> In 2022, the Spenglerian century ended short of global "Caesarism," albeit two years before its end [[Donald Trump]] had been advised to [[Crossing the Rubicon|cross the Rubicon]].<ref>Lemon, Jason, (December 20, 2020). "Arizona GOP Chair calls for Trump to 'cross the Rubicon' in tweet shared by Michael Flynn," ''Newsweek'', https://www.newsweek.com/arizona-gop-chair-calls-trump-cross-rubicon-tweet-shared-michael-flynn-1556232</ref> Chalmers Johnson regards the global military reach of the United States as empire in its "initial" form.<ref>''The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic'', (New York: Henry Hobt and Company, 2004), p 187.</ref> [[Dimitri Simes]] finds that most of the world sees the United States as a "nascent" imperial power.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Dimitri |last=Simes |author-link=Dimitri Simes |title=America's Imperial Dilemma |journal=[[Foreign Affairs]] |volume=82 |issue=6 |date=2003 |pages=91–102 |doi=10.2307/20033759 |jstor=20033759 }}</ref> Some scholars concerned how this empire would look in its ultimate form. The ultimate form of empire was described by Michael Doyle in his ''Empires''. It is empire in which its two main components—the ruling core and the ruled periphery—merged to form one integrated whole. At this stage the ''empire'' as defined ceases to exist and becomes ''world state''. Doyle examplifies the transformation on the case of the Roman Emperor [[Caracalla]] whose legislation in AD 212 extended the Roman citizenship to all inhabitants of the Mediterranean world.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Michael |last=Doyle |title=Empires |location=London |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |date=1986 |page=12}}</ref> Doyle's case of the Roman Empire had also been evoked by [[Susan Strange]] in her 1988 article, "The Future of the American Empire." Strange emphasized that the most persistent empires were those which best managed to integrate the ruling core and the peripheral allies. The article is partly a reply on the published a year earlier bestseller [[The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers]] which predicted imminent US "imperial overstretch." Strange found this outcome unlikely, stressing the fact that the peripheral allies have been successfully recruited into the American Empire.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Susan |last=Strange |title=The Future of the American Empire |journal=[[Journal of International Affairs]] |volume=42 |issue=1 |date=1988 |pages=9, 11}}</ref> Envisaging a world empire of either the United States or the Soviet Union (whoever is victorious in World War III), [[Bertrand Russell]] projected the Roman scenario too: "Like the Romans, they will, in the course of time, extend citizenship to the vanquished. There will then be a true world state, and it will be possible to forget that it will have owed its origin to conquest."<ref>{{Cite magazine |first=Bertrand |last=Russell |author-link=Bertrand Russell |title=The Future of Man |magazine=[[Atlantic Monthly]] |date=April 1951 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1951/03/the-future-of-man/305193}}</ref> International Relations scholar [[Alexander Wendt]] supposes world empire by universal conquest and subsequent consolidation, provided the conquering power recognizes all conquered members. For his example he also invokes the Roman Empire.<ref>Wendt, Alexander, (2003). "Why the World State is Inevitable: Teleology and the Logic of Anarchy," ''European Journal of International Relations''. 9 (4): pp 54–56, https://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/03wendt.pdf</ref><ref>Wendt, Alexander (2005). "Agency, Teleology and the World State: A Reply to Shannon". ''European Journal of International Relations''. 11 (4): p 595.</ref> To the case of Caracalla, Toynbee added the [[Abbasid Revolution|Abbasid cosmopolitan reformation]] of 750 AD. Both "were good auguries for the prospect that, in a post-Modern chapter of Western history, a supranational commonwealth originally based on the hegemony of a paramount power over its satellites might eventually be put on the sounder basis of a constitutional partnership in which all the people of all the partner states would have their fare share in the conduct of common affairs."{{Sfn|Toynbee|1954|page=554-555}} [[Crane Brinton]] expected that the world empire would not be built instantly but not as slowly as Rome, for much in the modern world has been speeded up.<ref>Brinton, Crane, (1948). ''From Many, One: The Process of Political Integration, the Problem of World Government'', (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1971), p 95.</ref> [[Charles Galton Darwin]], a grandson of the [[Charles Darwin|father of Evolution Theory]], suggested that China, as an isolated and enduring civilization, seems to provide the most relevant model for the global future. As the Chinese Empire, the regions of the world, periodically albeit more rarely, will be united by force into an uneasy world-empire, which will endure for a period until it falls.<ref>Darwin, Charles Galton, (1950). "The Next Million Years," [https://archive.org/download/fateofman00brin/fateofman00brin.pdf ''The Fate of Man'']. (New York: G. Braziller, 1961), pp 499, 501.</ref> Along China, Ostrovsky mentions Egypt as a model for the future but, by contrast, estimates that the intermediate periods of the global empire will be shorter and rarer.<ref>Ostrovsky 2007: pp 352, 362, 367.</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page