this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Strong disagree. Throughout the decline (roughly putting it at ~284 AD because I hate Diocletian, to 474 AD), not only was there a massive and sharp drop in living standards all across the former Empire, but one that dropped some areas below their pre-Roman living standards, most notably Britain (abandoned ~410 AD), but all across the western provinces.
Not only that, but that the decline was accompanied by a collapse of the pax Romana was not some abstract thing for the provincials - it meant, quite literally, war coming to their doorstep. Armies, Roman and barbarian, fighting in their lands and despoiling it, conscripting their children, seizing their grain. And when it was all over, those wars didn't stop - it was just Romans were no longer involved. There was a massive depopulation of Europe through the fall of the Empire.
And on top of all of that, the collapse of Roman civilization sent Europe and North Africa spiraling back in terms of societal complexity; economic, legal, and architectural complexity would not fully recover for some ~1200 years.
I don't think the US is quite that level of powerful. But please don't wish a Roman fall on the US, or you wish a fall on us all.
Yeah. Europe, gear up, please.
Maybe not globally but in the Americas maybe yes?
Of course, global geopolitics means there won’t be a total power vacuum. China & Russia waiting in the wings to tip things in their favor. Maybe Europe and India too if they can get their act together.
I would bet only 'globally' before betting on 'only the Americas', and I would bet 'unlike the fall of Rome' before I bet on either.
If we collapse soft, British Empire or Soviet Union style, there will be suffering and a massive recalculation of international politics, but life largely goes on.
Russia has no hope of anything at this point except vassalage to the PRC. China is exactly what I'm worried about, though.
What do you mean by this? Why would the US be more likely to be hegemonic over the entire world than just the Americas? Their heavy-handed political interventions in Latin America are well-known.
Just because everyone overestimated Putin’s military at the beginning of the war doesn’t mean they’re not a serious power. While they may not be quite on the level of the US or the CPC, they’re still the 5th largest in the world and I think despite the war casualties, their military production and organization are stronger than they were before. Their abilities in information warfare and nuclear arsenal also made them punch above their weight. I think they will remain a global power barring some kind of major political or economic collapse, and in a post US world might be more likely to come into conflict with the CPC.
Our power is built on global structures, not pan-American structures. Our meddling in Latin America is well-known, but if we collapsed, and my three choices were "The world goes in crisis", "The Americas go in crisis", or "Life goes on, like after the fall of the SovUnion", I would number the likelihood as
"Life goes on"
"The world goes in crisis"
"The Americas go in crisis"
Even before the Ukrainian invasion, every serious analyst knew Russia's future was cooked. Now it's just that they're unambiguously turned themselves into a vassal state for the PRC on account of having dropped a full percentage of their young men into a meat grinder in the midst of an already-dire demographic crisis, experienced a mass brain drain, wiped out their economy, and isolated themselves from Western trade.
Only by unsustainable deficit spending, and their production quality has dropped markedly since the beginning of the war. When you read "Russia has produced another 200 tanks!", you have to remember that "produced" means "refitted old Soviet T-72s (which are good enough, mind you) stock", not "made brand new equipment".
North Korea is the third largest military in the world, you don't see it dominating global politics.
Russia has wiped out a massive amount of its materiel, financial, and human resources in a war on its own border with a country a fourth of its size, wherein it still has not managed any major gains past the initial surprise attack three years ago. Its military is anything but capable of meaningful force projection at this point.
This much is true.
There's no reality in which the Russian Federation, in any recognizably modern form, conflicts with the PRC. It's like saying a Pomeranian is gonna rumble with a Neapolitan Mastiff - if it was stupid enough to do so, it wouldn't be anything more than a joke to the mastiff.
The whole world is bound up in American politics, man.
... how core do you think Britannia was to the Roman Empire, exactly? There's a reason I chose it as an example.
Bruh, Britannia hadn't had a major native uprising in over 300 years at the time Roman Britain was abandoned.
"Britannia" as in "The Roman province of Britannia", guy.
...
Fucking what.
Before and after the Jewish-Roman Wars in which religious fanatics attempted to murder everyone who wasn't their coreligionist or was their coreligionist but in the wrong way, yes. During them, not so much.
See, now this is a potentially legitimate point. I would counter, though, that most major cross-border incursions into Germania by Rome after the campaigns of Augustus were provoked by attacks and raids on Roman land and allies - Germania remained unconquered for the same reason that it was not really all that great as a target for loot and plunder - it was dirt poor. Rome's primary reason for expeditions against the Germanic tribes was defense of the borders - the Germans were neither prestigious nor prosperous targets.
Now, Persia? Persia was a perpetual dream of Roman conquest, and they were probably quite glad to hear half of their enemy's empire had collapsed.
Yes. Unironically.
No, but was life as a slave of a British chieftain or a Spanish warlord great? It seems an odd question to level considering the ubiquity of slavery in the ancient world.
No, man, this is pop history shit viewing the Roman Empire through an extremely modern lens of imperialism and exploitation.
This is like saying there was hunger in the medieval period, but there's also hunger in developed countries today. It entirely misses the fucking point.
Huh. I wonder why Romans were such great record keepers and were so keen on writing about 'how great it was' (since you think it's self-praising pamphleteers that we get our view of the Empire from) while everyone else utterly failed to do so. I guess it was coincidence.
The idea of the Empire's foundations being built on a cycle of conquest, exploitation, and enslavement is insane. That's plunder economy shit that hasn't been taken seriously in nearly a hundred years.
The end of USAID says that it isn't just our close allies that will suffer. The end of NOAA, and our other scientific endeavors means the whole world will suffer to some extent.