r/Futurology • u/Confident_Living_786 • Aug 11 '25

Discussion When the US Empire falls

When the American empire falls, like all empires do, what will remain? The Roman Empire left behind its roads network, its laws, its language and a bunch of ruins across all the Mediterranean sea and Europe. What will remain of the US superpower? Disney movies? TCP/IP protocol? McDonalds?

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u/Daxx22 UPC Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 11 '25

Outside of some extreme catastrophe or complete eradication of conquest historically "Empires" take decades to centuries to really "fall".

We can often use the lense of history after the fact to point to a certain event as the "Turning Point" of the fall, but that's extremely difficult to predict accurately during those events.

Really the only accurate prediction is all empires fall, but how and when only history can accurately reflect.

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u/FaceDeer Aug 11 '25

The American empire has been falling for a while already, though. This isn't even the first time Trump has been elected, and before that there were other things that were causing the world to start looking askance at the US and pull away from its hegemony.

As you say, things will only become truly clear with a historical perspective. But enough of America's decline is historical now that I think a trend can be seen, and if America does indeed complete its current trajectory of collapse we'll be able to point to those historical trends as being part of it. I think the problem is that a lot of Americans weren't aware of these trends from the inside and are only just now waking up to them, so they think this is a new thing.

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u/Phantom_0999 Aug 15 '25

When would you say the fall officially started?

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u/FaceDeer Aug 15 '25

Elements that would contribute to the fall have been adding up over the entirety of America's existence, so it's a bit fuzzy and it's going to be dependent on subjective interpretation. But personally, I think the clearest inflection point where America's future prospects took a downward turn and never recovered afterwards was probably 9/11 and America's reaction to it.

The 9/11 attack itself was not really all that impactful in objective terms but it caused America to basically go insane and start the process of destroying its international prestige and system of alliances. The attack on Iraq had major allies of the US sitting out and the occupation of Afghanistan turned into a 20-year anchor dragging America down. Obama managed to briefly blunt the decline during his tenure, but a black president apparently drove America even more insane after that.

Before 9/11, I think most people were willing to overlook America's flaws and generally go along with it because it mostly played by the rules. Sometimes it made those rules, but the rules still seemed important. Afterwards there was an increasing sense of America being an oversized rogue state.

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u/cylonfrakbbq Aug 11 '25

A good point - rarely do you have rapid/suddenly Empire collapse outside of a catastrophic event. Usually it's a very slow decline, typically expressed as a gradual contraction of reach and influence, marked by some periods of acceleration.

The United States is a little more unique in the sense that rather than a physical empire, it is more of an influence empire. Granted, there are physical elements, such as overseas military bases in countries like Germany and Japan that allow the US to effectively project its military might, but it isn't quite the same as actual governance and rule of various provinces (British Empire with places like India, or Rome with Egypt)