Paul Craig Roberts, who was assistant secretary to the treasury in Ronald Reagan’s administration, has announced that collapse of the US is no longer avoidable.
To substantiate this conclusion, he cites a couple of Russians whose
opinions he respects: Andrei Raevsky (a.k.a. The Saker) and Dmitry Orlov
(that would be me). I am flattered, of course, but I have never claimed
that the collapse of the US was ever avoidable. “All empires collapse
eventually; no exceptions!” I kept repeating. Ever since I first started
writing on this subject in 2006, I never equivocated on this point. At
that time, I wrote:
“The collapse of the United States seems about as unlikely now as the
collapse of the Soviet Union seemed in 1985. The experience of the first
collapse may be instructive to those who wish to survive the second.”
Does the collapse of the US seem a lot more likely to you now than it
did in 2006? If so, that’s a good sign; if not, you should eat more
fish. It is rich in omega-3 which will make your brain work better.
I
don’t feel any particular urge urge to chime in with Roberts and
announce that the US has just now reached the point of no return because
in my opinion it passed this point a long ago. I also find it rather
untoward that making this determination should hinge on the opinions of a
couple of Russians; Americans should decide for themselves when their
empire has collapsed far enough to call its collapse a collapse. Also, I
don’t want to have a hand in collapsing America because it contradicts
the informal Russian policy with regard to America’s collapse, which is
neatly encapsulated in the lapidary phrase ВСЁ САМИ—“everything
themselves”: Americans get to do their own collapsing while Russians
refuse to lift a finger to help them. In line with this policy, I aim to
inform collapse, not to perform collapse.
And
in line with my goal of informing collapse, I wish to provide you with
the tools to decide whether, and to what extent, American Empire has
collapsed. My approach treats America as an empire, and assumes that it
rests on the same three pillars as every other empire since empires
first appeared many thousands of years ago. These three pillars do not
include such incidentals as financial wealth, economic power, military
might, technological superiority, a large population or vast territorial
possessions. The three pillars are composed of essential mental
constructs. Bereft of these key constructs an empire folds like a cheap
suit. The American Empire once had these mental constructs in abundance.
I want to equip you to decide for yourself whether it has them at all
any more.
