Empire

===Universal empire===
{{See also|Universal monarchy}}
Expert on warfare [[Quincy Wright]] generalized on what he called "universal empire"—empire unifying all the contemporary system:
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Balance of power systems have in the past tended, through the process of conquest of lesser states by greater states, towards reduction in the number of states involved, and towards less frequent but more devastating wars, until eventually a universal empire has been established through the conquest by one of all those remaining.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wright |first=Quincy |date=August 1, 1948 |title=On the Application of Intelligence to World Affairs |journal=[[Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists]] |volume=4 |issue=8 |page=250 |bibcode=1948BuAtS...4h.249W |doi=10.1080/00963402.1948.11460234}}</ref>}}
German Sociologist Friedrich Tenbruck finds that the macro-historic process of imperial expansion gave rise to [[World history (field)|global history]] in which the formations of universal empires were most significant stages.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Friedrich |last=Tenbruck |title=Internal History of Society or Universal History? |translator=J. Bleicher |journal=Theory, Culture, Society |issue=11 |date=1994 |page=87}}</ref> A later group of political scientists, working on the phenomenon of the current [[unipolarity]], in 2007 edited research on several pre-modern civilizations by experts in respective fields. The overall conclusion was that the [[balance of power (international relations)|balance of power]] was inherently unstable order and usually soon broke in favor of imperial order.<ref>[[William Wohlforth]], & Stuart J. Kaufman, & Richard Little, ''Balance of Power in World History'', (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).</ref> Yet before the advent of the unipolarity, world historian [[Arnold J. Toynbee|Arnold Toynbee]] and political scientist [[Martin Wight]] had drawn the same conclusion with an unambiguous implication for the modern world:
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When this [imperial] pattern of political history is found in the New World as well as in the Old World, it looks as if the pattern must be intrinsic to the political history of societies of the species we call civilizations, in whatever part of the world the specimens of this species occur. If this conclusion is warranted, it illuminates our understanding of civilization itself.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Garcilaso de la Vega |title=Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru |date=1966 |isbn=978-0-292-73358-9 |pages=X–XI |chapter=Foreword |publisher=University of Texas Press |author-link=Inca Garcilaso de la Vega}}</ref>}}
{{Blockquote|
Most states systems have ended in universal empire, which has swallowed all the states of the system. The examples are so abundant that we must ask two questions: Is there any states system which has not led fairly directly to the establishment of a world empire? Does the evidence rather suggest that we should expect any states system to culminate in this way? ... It might be argued that every state system can only maintain its existence on the [[balance of power (international relations)|balance of power]], that the latter is inherently unstable, and that sooner or later its tensions and conflicts will be resolved into a monopoly of power.<ref>''System of States'', (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1977, pp. 43–44).</ref>}}
The earliest thinker to approach the phenomenon of universal empire from a theoretical point of view was [[Polybius]] (2:3):
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In previous times events in the world occurred without impinging on one another ... [Then] history became a whole, as if a single body; events in Italy and Libya came to be enmeshed with those in Asia and Greece, and everything gets directed towards one single goal.}}
[[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]], having witnessed the battle at Jena in 1806 when Napoleon overwhelmed Prussia, described what he perceived as a deep historical trend:
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There is necessary tendency in every cultivated State to extend itself generally ... Such is the case in Ancient History ... As the States become stronger in themselves and cast off that [Papal] foreign power, the tendency towards a Universal Monarchy over the whole Christian World necessarily comes to light ... This tendency ... has shown itself successively in several States which could make pretensions to such a dominion, and since the fall of the Papacy, it has become the sole animating principle of our History ... Whether clearly or not—it may be obscurely—yet has this tendency lain at the root of the undertakings of many States in Modern Times ... Although no individual Epoch may have contemplated this purpose, yet is this the spirit which runs through all these individual Epochs, and invisibly urges them onward.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fichte |first=Johann Gottlieb |chapter=Characteristics of the Present Age |date=1975 |title=Theory and Practice of the Balance of Power, 1486–1914: Selected European Writings |isbn=978-0-460-10196-7 |editor-last=Wright |editor-first=Moorhead |pages=87–89 |author-link=Johann Gottlieb Fichte |orig-date=1806}}</ref>}}
Fichte's later compatriot, Geographer [[Alexander von Humboldt]], in the mid-Nineteenth century observed a macro-historic trend of imperial growth in both Hemispheres: "Men of great and strong minds, as well as whole nations, acted under influence of one idea, the purity of which was utterly unknown to them."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Cosmos: a sketch of a physical description of the universe by Alexander von Humboldt; translated from German by E. C. Otté |year=1866 |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/32462 |page=359 |volume=I}}</ref>
The imperial expansion filled the world {{Circa|1900}}.<ref name="youtube.com">{{cite web| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp0tqdu7fH4| title = "50 Centuries in 10 Minutes", (2014)| website = [[YouTube]]}}</ref><ref name="World 2015">{{cite web| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymI5Uv5cGU4| title = "History of the World: Every Year", (2015)| website = [[YouTube]]}}</ref> Two famous contemporary observers—[[Frederick Jackson Turner|Frederick Turner]] and [[Halford Mackinder]] described the event and drew implications, the former predicting American overseas expansion<ref>{{Cite book |last=Turner |first=Frederick Jackson |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22994 |title=The Frontier in American History |date=1920 |author-link=Frederick Jackson Turner}}</ref> and the latter stressing that the world empire is now in sight.<ref>[[Halford J. Mackinder]], ''The [[Geographical Pivot of History]]'', J. Murray, London, 1904.</ref>

In 1870, Argentine diplomat, jurist and political theorist [[Juan Bautista Alberdi]] described imperial consolidation. As von Humboldt, he found this trend unplanned and irrational but evident beyond doubt in the "unwritten history of events." He linked this trend to the recent [[Evolution theory]]: Nations gravitate towards the formation of a single universal society. The laws that lead the nations in that direction are the same natural laws that has formed societies and are part of evolution. These evolutionary laws exist disregarding whether men recognize them.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Guerra.pdf|title=In Spanish. Alberdi, Juan Bautista, (1870). Chapter VIII, "Analogia biologica," ''El crimen de la guerra''}}</ref>

Similarly, [[Friedrich Ratzel]] observed that the "drive toward the building of continually larger states continues throughout the entirety of history" and is active in the present.<ref>Fridriech Ratzel, "The Laws of the Spatial Growth of States", ''The Structure of Political Geography'', (eds. Kasperson, Roger E., & Minghi, Julian V., Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969), p 28.</ref> He drew "Seven Laws of Expansionism". His seventh law stated: "The general trend toward amalgamation transmits the tendency of territorial growth from state to state and increases the tendency in the process of transmission." He commented on this law to make its meaning clear: "There is on this small planet sufficient space for only one great state."<ref>Cited in [[Robert Strausz-Hupé]], ''Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power'', (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1942), p 30-31.</ref>

Two other contemporaries—[[Kang Youwei]] and George [[Vacher de Lapouge]]—stressed that imperial expansion cannot indefinitely proceed on the definite surface of the globe and therefore world empire is imminent. Kang Youwei in 1885 believed that the imperial trend will culminate in the contest between Washington and Berlin<ref>[[K'ang Yu-wei]], ''The One World Philosophy'', (tr. Thompson, Lawrence G., London, 1958), pp. 79–80, 85.</ref> and Vacher de Lapouge in 1899 estimated that the final contest will be between Russia and America in which America is likely to triumph.<ref>George [[Vacher de Lapouge]], ''L'Aryen: Son Rôle Social'', (Nantes: 1899), chapter "L'Avenir des Aryens".</ref>

The above envisaged contests indeed took place, known to us as World War I and II. Writing during the First, [[Oswald Spengler]] in ''[[The Decline of the West]]'' compared two emergences of universal empires and implied for the modern world: The Chinese League of States failed as well as the Taoist idea of intellectual self-disarmament. The Chinese states defended their last independence with bitterness but in vain. Also in vain Rome attempted to avoid conquest of the Hellenistic east. Imperialism is so necessary a product of any civilization that when a strongest people refuse to assume the role of master, it is pushed into it. It is the same with us. The [[Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907|Hague Conference of 1907]] was the prelude of World War, the [[Washington Naval Conference|Washington Conference]] of 1921 will have been that of other wars. Napoleon introduced the idea of military world empire different from the preceding European maritime empires. The contest "for the heritage of the whole world" will culminate "within two generations" (from 1922). The destinies of small states are "without importance to the great march of things." The strongest race will win and seize the management of the world.<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 422, 428-432, https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.264078/mode/2up?view=theater</ref>

Writing during the next World War, political scientists Derwent Whittlesey, [[Robert Strausz-Hupé]] and [[John H. Herz]] concluded: "Now that the earth is at last parceled out, consolidation has commenced."<ref>Derwent Whittlesey, ''German Strategy of World Conquest'', (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942), p 74.</ref> In "this world of fighting superstates there could be no end to war until one state had subjected all others, until world empire had been achieved by the strongest. This undoubtedly is the logical final stage in the geopolitical theory of evolution."<ref>Robert Strausz-Hupé, ''Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power'', (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1942), p XI.</ref>
{{Blockquote|
The world is no longer large enough to harbor several self-contained powers ... The trend toward world domination or hegemony of a single power is but the ultimate consummation of a power-system engrafted upon an otherwise integrated world.<ref>John H. Herz, "Power Politics and World Organization,"' ''The American Political Science Review'', 36/6, (1942): p 1041.</ref>}}
Writing in the last year of the War, American Theologian Parley Paul Wormer, German Historian [[Ludwig Dehio]],and Hungarian-born writer [[Emery Reves]] drew similar conclusions. Fluctuating but persistent movement occurred through the centuries toward ever greater unity. The forward movement toward ever larger unities continues and there is no reason to conclude that it has come to an end. More likely, the greatest convergence of all time is at hand. "Possibly this is the deeper meaning of the savage world conflicts" of the 20th century.<ref>Wormer, Parley Paul, (1945). ''Citizenship and the New Day'', (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press), p 206.</ref>
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[T]he old European tendency toward division is now being thrust aside by the new global trend toward unification. And the onrush of this trend may not come to rest until it has asserted itself throughout our planet ... The global order still seems to be going through its birth pangs ... With the last tempest barely over, a new one is gathering.<ref>Ludwig Dehio, ''The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle, 1945'', (tr. Fullman, Charles, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), pp. 266–267.</ref>}}
The famous ''[[The Anatomy of Peace|Anatomy of Peace]]'' by Reves, written and published in 1945, supposed that without the industrial power of the United States, Hitler already might have established world empire. Proposing [[world federalism]], the book warned: Every dynamic force, every economic and technological reality, every "law of history" and logic "indicates that we are on the verge of a period of empire building," which is "the last phase of the struggle for the conquest of the world." As an elimination contest, one of the three remaining powers or a combination "will achieve by force that unified control made mandatory by the times we live in… Anyone of three, by defeating the other two, would conquer and rule the world." If we fail to institute a unified control over the world in democratic way, the "iron law of history" would compel us to wage wars until world empire is finally attained through conquest. Since the former way is improbable due human blindness, we should precipitate the unification by conquest as quickly as possible and start the restoration of human liberties within the world empire.<ref>Reves, Emery (1945). ''The Anatomy of Peace'', (1 ed. New York & London: Harper & Brothers Publishers), pp 265-266, 268-270.</ref>