In his prophetic 2003 book Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and its Lessons for Global Power, British-American historian Niall Ferguson described how the greatest Empire in human history—in 1914 comprising one quarter of the earth's surface and population, along with a globe-girdling commercial and financial dominance unequaled before or since—was built over three centuries, and then with relative suddenness collapsed in a space of barely 40 years.
Ironically Britain's downfall came about largely as a consequence of winning two world wars at a cost of 1.2 million battlefield deaths and the impoverishment of its people owing to the immense economic sacrifices required to achieve victory. A further result that would doom the empire was the surging post-war tide of anti-colonialism that swept across the non-western world, greatly exacerbated by the revolutionary influence of global Communism.
As was recounted by Ferguson, the condition of Britain in 1945 as a war-weary electorate massively defeated Winston Churchill's government, changing the nation's focus away from empire toward rebuilding the lives of ordinary people, was one of “near total exhaustion—political, economic, and moral.”s
In the very year Ferguson wrote these words the United States—already deeply embroiled in the War on Terror and an unwinnable conflict in Afghanistan—invaded Iraq on the false premise that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), thereby catapulting America into the midst of the Middle East’s never-ending cycles of violence.
This disastrous foreign policy decision, which alienated the United States from its European allies and generated a growing hostility throughout the Muslim world, would also be a deadly accelerant for the poisonous polarization of our domestic politics which has plagued our country throughout this century.
At the same time the United States was committing itself to debilitating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with neither clearly defined goals nor exit strategies, the Bush Administration was also promoting a policy of NATO expansion—despite strong opposition from France and Germany as well as from respected American authorities like George Kennan and Henry Kissinger, who saw this as "needless provocation of Russia.”
In 2021 America's 20-year Afghan folly ended in humiliating defeat which not only demonstrated our strategic incompetence but clearly signaled to friend and foe alike that the U.S. was a fickle ally who, as was first demonstrated in Vietnam, would abandon friends whenever changing political winds in Washington required such.
Less than six months after the debacle at the Kabul Airport tragically ended America's first “forever war,” the Biden administration fully committed the U.S. to another one, this time in Ukraine. The countless warnings about the dangers of Ukraine involvement—not least Barack Obama’s astute observation that “Ukraine is a vital interest for Russia, in a way it is not for the United States”—proved unavailing. When President Putin's warnings that NATO being pushed to the border of his country was a “red line” for Russia were ignored, he invaded Ukraine in February of 2022.
Immediately began a remarkable transformation of public perceptions: Russia's attack was said to be akin to Pearl Harbor; Putin became Hitler; and Zelensky became Winston Churchill. President Biden told the world America was “in it to win it” and would be steadfast “for as long as it takes,” in tones that summoned the messianic zeal of Woodrow Wilson's pledge to “make the world safe for democracy.” However, contradictions abounded as he also assured Americans that Russia could be defeated by proxy— just by sending money and weapons with no danger of nuclear war.
Inevitably our enemies—China, Iran, North Korea—perceived an opportunity to undermine and weaken what they viewed as America's worldwide hegemony” through making common cause with their Russian neighbor by openly or covertly supplying weapons and other vital materials of war as well as increasing trade and diplomatic support.
China began escalating a campaign of harassing American allies in Asia—Japan, Australia, and the Philippines—and militarily menacing what it regards as its “lost province” of Taiwan. Iran used its oil wealth to subsidize proxies throughout the Middle East—Houthis, Hezbollah, and most dangerously Hamas, which through its barbaric attack last October precipitated a full-scale invasion of Gaza by America’s ally Israel, a conflict which quickly became a polarizing issue throughout the world.
There is a tendency to think whatever happened in history was inevitable. That's not true. Between 1914 and 1945 two catastrophic world wars occurred that could have been avoided through more timely or more skilled diplomatic and/ or military action. Today the kind of circumstances that in 1945 brought Britain to political, economic, and moral exhaustion hover across America's path through Hhstory. For us, there’s still time, but it is not unlimited.
Bill Moloney studied history and politics at Oxford, and the University of London, and received his Doctorate from Harvard University. His columns have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Hill, USA today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post and Human Events.