Agony of a Great Empire

At the start of the third millennium, the tide of historical processes has accelerated beyond belief. If earlier the process of the rise, flourishing and fall of great empires dragged on for centuries, now it is compressed into decades.

The upheavals occurring in the world in recent years, including the Ukrainian crisis, are part of a much larger process: the collapse of a great empire that has outlived its glory and desperately clings to the remnants of its former might.

I’m talking about the United States of America.

The country went from young power to world leader incredibly quickly by the standards of world history — in a mere century and a half. If you consider that during most of this period the U.S. distanced itself from active participation in world politics, the country’s ascent was like the blastoff of a space rocket.

The Old World, having swallowed its pride, acquiesced to the role of a “younger brother” whom the “older brother” protected from red scares. The countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America were still less able to oppose the young empire in any way.

The only real rival — strong, powerful and with a potent ideology — fell in 1991.

Euphoria then swept the U.S.: We’re on top of the world; we’re the only leaders! Now we will build an ideal system, a new world order!

In the early 1990s, no one could seriously challenge the U.S. On the contrary, most were willing to hang on the victor’s every word so that it would establish universal peace and prosperity on the planet.

But with each passing year it became apparent that the “world’s Monomakh cap”* was too heavy for the United States. Billions of people around the world did not want to build their lives according to Washington’s templates.

The Americans did not waste time convincing or persuading: They punished those who were recalcitrant with sanctions, and where that did not bring resistors to their senses, brought down the full power of American weaponry.

As a matter of fact, the Americans solved problems in their relations with the native peoples of the New World in exactly the same manner, which ended very badly for the latter.

Yet driving the entire planet’s population off to reservations is an impossible task even for the United States.

The complaints grew ever stronger; the “new world order” fell to pieces. Each new American military action swelled the ranks of those who began to perceive Washington not as a “beacon of freedom” but as “the world’s policeman.”

But in American politicians’ minds the image from the 1990s is still alive — the image of the high point of U.S. power — and they do not want to admit whatsoever that the world has changed.

Like an aging lothario who, having lost his former allure, frantically tries to prove that he’s still got it [by] clinging to young beauties on the street, so America, losing power, frantically clings to any opportunity to prove that it alone remains chief justice in international relations.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, Syria — all these countries have in recent years experienced direct U.S. interference in their affairs. The degree of interference has varied, but the result is the same: blood, chaos, destruction, and tens, hundreds, thousands of victims …

The United States reminds me of the mythical King Midas, the only difference being that everything the country touches turns not into gold but into a huge, fetid pile of waste.

Ukraine turned out to be the latest on the list of “transformed” countries. In its zeal to create a new stronghold of its influence on Russia’s borders, the United States released the genie of Ukrainian Nazism from the bottle. In Washington, they didn’t begin to think about how this genie would affect the lives of the Ukrainians themselves, just as previously they didn’t begin to think about what would become of ordinary Syrians, Libyans or Egyptians.

At the turn of the 17th century, the Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory earned a place in history because of her massacres of young girls. In an effort to preserve her youth, the countess bathed in the blood of her victims, believing that it would make her eternally youthful and attractive.

The United States, continuing to spur the Kiev regime it brought to power toward the continuation of civil war, is bathing in the blood of the Ukrainian people, believing it is thus underpinning itself in the role of world leader.

In reality, it’s an illusion. The U.S. is in no condition to solve a single world problem, in no condition to bring peace to Iraq and Afghanistan, in no condition to defeat global terrorism …

The frantic activity of the star-striped empire as it suffers collapse only increases the number of those in whom it inspires nothing but horror and disgust.

How long this agony will drag on, and how many more people will pay with their lives for U.S. attempts to hold onto its status as the “sole superpower” is unknown. But the outcome is inevitable: Only weeds exult over the ruins of great empires.

*Editor’s note: This is a symbolic crown and chief relic of Russian autocracy.