posted on Aug, 8 2003 @ 09:36 AM
The Conceited Empire
A historian credited with predicting the downfall of the Soviet Union in the 1970s now says that the US has been on its way out for the last decade
by Martin A. Senn and Felix Lautenschlager
translated by Andreas Artz
The power and influence of the United States is being overestimated, claims French historian and demographer Emmanuel Todd. "There will be no
American Empire." "The world is too large and dynamic to be controlled by one power." According to Todd, whose 1976 book predicted the fall of the
Soviet Union, there is no question: the decline of America the Superpower has already begun.
Emmanuel Todd compares the US to 16th century Spain, arguing that US economic power is being undermined by the decline of its industrial base and its
increased dependence on other countries to feed its consumption.The power and influence of the United States is being overestimated, claims French
historian and demographer Emmanuel Todd. "There will be no American Empire." "The world is too large and dynamic to be controlled by one power."
According to Todd, whose 1976 book predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, there is no question: the decline of America the Superpower has already
begun.
This article was originally published in Neue Zuricher Zeitung (The New Zuricher, Sunday morning).
* * *
NZZ: Mr. Todd, you write that America is economically, militarily, and ideologically too weak to actually control the world. This would gladden many
anti-Americans. But how is this anything but the wishful thinking of an intellectual who is the product of the French US critical tradition?
ET: This is neither wishful thinking nor anti-Americanism. Why would I have been so prominently criticised by the left? The French career
anti-American paper "Le Monde diplomatique", was the only major paper that remained conspicuously silent on my book. The over-estimation of America
is fundamental to these people. It is on this topic that they agree with the American ultra-conservatives: the former to demonize, the latter to
aggrandize.
full article (excellent in depth-analysis) :
dominionpaper.ca...