Peak Empire

[This is a guest post from Gary, who presents data that indicate that the US military empire is already past its peak and may collapse suddenly. Gary uses a methodology for calculating peak empire that is similar to the Hubbert curve which successfully predicted Peak Oil for both the US and, more recently, the world.

It should be noted that the DOD base structure reports on which Gary's analysis is based don't include Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of the secret (black) installations all over the world, but it is unclear whether the inclusion of these data would change the picture materially.

As far as the speed of imperial collapse, it varies: Rome took five centuries to collapse but USSR took just a couple of years. Alfred W. McCoy, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recently wrote: "empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003." My hunch is that McCoy's 22-year estimate is overly generous, and that the collapse of the USA will set a speed record, unfolding over just a handful of very strange days. When will this happen? According to Chris Hedges, it could happen any time now.]

Predicting Collapse

In February, 2009 Dmitry Orlov said the following about predicting the collapse of the US empire: “I have learned from experience – luckily, from other people’s experience – that being a superpower collapse predictor is not a good career choice. I learned that by observing what happened to the people who successfully predicted the collapse of the USSR. Do you know who Andrei Amalrik is? See, my point exactly. He successfully predicted the collapse of the USSR. He was off by just half a decade. That was another valuable lesson for me, which is why I will not give you an exact date when USA will turn into FUSA (“F” is for “Former”). But even if someone could choreograph the whole event, it still wouldn’t make for much of a career, because once it all starts falling apart, people have far more important things to attend to than marveling at the wonderful predictive abilities of some Cassandra-like person.”

As far as predicting the collapse of the US empire, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting it for 2010, and Johan Galtung has predicted it will collapse before 2020. Hubbert predicted in 1974 that global peak oil was incompatible with constantly growing money, triggering a cultural crisis (See Exponential Growth as a Transient Phenomenon).

Andrei Amalrik died in a car crash in 1980 at the age of 42. Nevertheless, at the risk of making a poor career choice, I will attempt to offer a methodology for determining peak US empire, if not a prediction for its demise. Now that global peak oil is history perhaps it’s time to work on predicting peak empire instead. If you followed the work of Joseph Tainter, he offered the theory of diminishing and eventually negative marginal return to territorial growth and complexity of societies. (See The Collapse of Complex Societies) He offered the following graph to illustrate:

As a result he expected complex societies to reach a peak in size and then begin to decline, similar to an oil peak.

He offered the following examples to demonstrate the principle with historical examples of defunct empires:

From: Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies

Shown above are the territorial areas of the Roman, Ottoman, Russian, and US Empires. The curve for the Russian Empire ends abruptly at 1917 where the curve for its heir—the USSR—takes off. The main point is that empires follow a typical bell curve type of shape.

US Empire

In the case of the US empire, it has not continued to expand by territorial acquisition. The last territory acquired was the Marshall Islands in 1947, which then became a UN Trust Territory, followed by Independence in 1986. What has continued to expand is the presence of US military installations all over the world. As the recently deceased analyst Chalmers Johnson explained, the US is an “empire of bases”, not an empire of colonies. The US has 800-1000 foreign military bases and 4-5000 bases in the US. Colonies are so passé these days. Why bother with colonies when you can impose your will with a few bases, and you don’t have to manage the whole country. Besides you can outsource most everything to contractors, so you don’t even need the consent of the governed. All you need is their tax money, which the sheeple continue to provide with barely a bleat.

Looking at the DOD Base Structure reports it is possible to graph the total acreage owned by the US military both in the US, in foreign countries, and in US foreign territories. Since both foreign countries and territories are occupied, I will lump them together. It is also valid to use total military acreage including the US, since the 50 states of the US are essentially occupied territory of the US military as well.

I was unable to find data before 1957, but total acreage under management by the US military had a recent peak in 2007, while foreign acreage peaked in 2004. This data is from official US DOD base structure reports, which according to Chalmers Johnson leaves out quite a bit, but from a relative point of view over time, it is probably adequate. I have included the excel sheet data, and others are welcome to add to the data and do a more thorough job graphing this data.

Military spending

Looking at US military spending below, it has continued to rise, despite the recent decline in acreage under management. This is entirely consistent with Tainter’s theory of declining marginal utility to expanding empires, as imperial overstretch becomes more and more expensive, and returns to expenditures begins to decline, and even become negative. It would be entirely consistent for the expenditures to continue to rise as the empire attempts to hold onto its existing level of military acreage, until interest on the debt causes a default, and then expenditures also collapse.

Imperial Reserves

Like oil, the empire has reserves to continue fueling the military machine. It has its AAA bond rating in order to continue deficit spending by selling Treasury bonds to foreign countries, although the rating agencies have taken somewhat of a hit on their credibility after the financial crisis. Foreign governments may also be thinking twice about the future viability of the dollar. It has the Federal Reserve to continue creating money out of thin air by key strokes on a computer, and engaging in open market operations like “quantitative easing” and purchasing existing treasuries, or even monetizing the debt by buying treasury bonds directly from the US government, giving it more money to play with. Finally they have the credulous and supplicant taxpayers who continue to fund their own demise by turning their tax dollars over to an empire, which throws it down three rat holes simultaneously: The $1 trillion dollar annual military budget, the Afghanistan War, and the bankster bailouts. Like the oil reserve/production ratio, the empire has a reserve/territorial expansion ratio which is declining rapidly. If interest rates increase adequately, the interest on the debt is going to swallow up all of tax revenues, such that a tax increase might be required. Will the sheeple rebel then? We’ll see. In any case, I welcome others to comment on the viability of military acreage as a measure of peak empire, and to expand on the analysis.

[Update: Gary did some more plotting, and here are the results: graphing acreage vs military spending shows diminishing total returns on military spending, and negative marginal returns since 1991 at least.

One more thing to keep in mind: as William Pfaff, writing in Foreign Affairs, puts it, "U.S. military bases have generated apprehension and hostility and fear of the United States, and they have facilitated futile, unnecessary, unprofitable, and self-defeating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and now seem to be inviting enlarged U.S. interventions in Pakistan, Yemen, and the Horn of Africa. The 9/11 attacks, according to Osama bin Laden himself, were provoked by the "blasphemy" of the existence of U.S. military bases in the sacred territories of Saudi Arabia. The global base system, it seems, tends to produce and intensify the very insecurity that is cited to justify it." Not only is American Empire post-peak, but, just like the Soviet Empire before it, it was operated at a loss throughout, even as it grew, in each case making national bankruptcy just a matter of time.]

Two-Step to Empire

ClubOrlov officially endorses Richard Cheney as the candidate for US Emperor. Dick is superbly suited to serve as the imperial figurehead for the few months or years that he and/or the US Empire will continue to exist. Thanks to the efforts of the Bush/Cheney administration, the constitution of the United States has been reduced to a largely inconsequential historical document, and this should make the transition from Republican to imperial administration an even simpler matter than it was in Rome under Julius Caesar. Since Cheney has already pronounced the Office of the Vice President to be a new, fourth branch of government, all that remains is for him to to rename it Office of the Emperor, and to prune back some of the other branches.

Such evolutionary measures would be timely. Many American commentators have pointed out that a new cold war and an arms race should be starting up between the United States and Russia. That the Russians remain largely unimpressed by America's hostile overtures towards them is a clear indication of how ineffectual American pseudo-democracy has become. In comparison, Russian pseudo-democracy appears to be evolving by leaps and bounds. Just a few days ago, a new Russian President was elected, with a minimum of fuss and zero uncertainty as to the outcome of the election. The successor was appointed by his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, and the electorate cheerfully ratified his decision. His choice of successor is most felicitous: the new president's name is Dmitry, as is mine, he is about my age, about my height, from my home town (St. Petersburg), and from a similar family background (academic). Clearly, he is a swell fellow, and only an enemy of ClubOrlov could dislike him.

In comparison, the menagerie of American presidential candidates leaves much to be desired. We have an Eva Perón sort of candidate: not unexpected, since having the wife of the president run the country is a great American tradition (Latin American, until now, but that distinction is fast fading into insignificance). Whatever happens, don't cry for her, Argent... um... América... del Norte! We also have a tempestuous geriatric, who would like to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran. He believes that the lack of military success in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan is due to civilian meddling in military affairs, and has nothing to do with the idiotic choice of missions, such as his idea of attacking Iran. Last but not least, we have the son of an anthropologist, an empath with a special ability to create a powerful psychological suction. The vacuum he creates sucks in his followers' hopes, whatever they may be. He might do for us is what Jane Goodall did for the chimps: hand out bananas and watch the chimps fight over them. Some of us chimps have the audacity to hope that your bananas will become ours.

All of this playing at politics is completely unnecessary. Democracy is for those capable of self-governance. Americans are not interested in governing themselves, but in watching television, and the political spectacle does not make for particularly compelling television viewing. To make it more interesting, I would like to propose a process of political reform which I call "Two-Step to Empire." Step 1: McCain chooses Cheney as his running mate and, come November, Diebold comes up with some numbers to show that they have won; Step 2: Cheney renames "Office of the Vice President" to "Office of the Emperor" while McCain gratefully fades from view, his mission completed.

As Emperor, Cheney would be able to drive to completion some of the projects he has championed as Vice President. He would reorganize the Secret Service and the military into a single large, for-profit institution called, say, the Praetorian Guard. He would streamline the federal bureaucracy along imperial lines, eliminating such redundancies as congressional oversight and an independent judiciary. And he would be able to directly charge into battle against all enemies foreign and domestic, real and imagined, directly leading his troops. This last endeavor is not without risk, and may cause Dick to end up like the Roman Emperor Valerian, who was captured, killed, and had his corpse stuffed with straw, mounted, and put on permanent exhibit at a Mesopotamian temple, in perpetual ignominy. Or the Praetorian Guard, finding these numerous conflicts dangerous and unprofitable, might arrange for their fearless leader's untimely demise and replace him with his named successor: Empress Condoleezza.

In due course, US Empire would become ungovernable as a unit and be forced to split into two, just as the Roman Empire did. Empress Condoleezza would remain as Empress of the East, while Emperor Arnold would ascend to the throne as Emperor of the West. While Emperor Arnold can very well drive his own chariot at the Coliseum, mashing terrorist captives into a bloody pulp under the wheels of his speeding chariot, Empress Condoleezza would need to appoint a body-double, to avoid frightening the horses. Naomi Campbell might be suitable.

I believe that this imperial approach would make for much more compelling and riveting television viewing than the current tawdry and meaningless electoral spectacle.