John Batchelor
interviewed Michael Vlahos, Naval War College. The topic was “Imagining the Fall of the American Empire.”
Vlahos doesn’t just imagine it – it is inevitable.
I
offer some paraphrased excerpts from the interview – no transcript, just as
fast as I could type. I will offer these paraphrased excerpts without
further comment until the conclusion.
Batchelor
asks: Are the American people well informed that we have reached the limits of
our strength?
Per
Vlahos, the regular people see it and the elites transmit it via empty
slogans. For example, when Trump says Make America Great Again, well,
this suggests it currently isn’t; when Hillary says America is still great, the
pleading in her voice is obvious.
After
WWII, we thought we could do anything and the whole world thought we could do
anything. This was in decline within a couple of decades but turned
upward during Reagan.
Since 911 – and it isn’t the attacks, but
instead the manner of the US response – the US has conspired to slowly
de-legitimate its own authority. This is now fully exposed via the
divisiveness in the imperial city – we look foolish to Americans and to the
rest of the world.
Forces
in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan – for decades with no way out. Fighting
against ideas – whatever one thinks of these ideas – that have more vitality
than American ideas. American ideas are empty of vitality, they are
hollow. Washington is seen as corrupt; the American (and European) idea
is weak.
The
empire will be replaced – in the meantime, there is savagery.
Americans
need to embrace their identity and new things. New things can be
remarkable, yet not to be found in the currency of elite conversations of today
– not in political correctness, not in the empty ideological coinage and
currency of today.
As the elites collapse – it will open
up new space in which the people can approach the world differently.
There is no ultimate hope that the current
system in the United States can continue. Things like $500 billion
deficits are just metaphors for the impoverishment of the system itself. It
is the spiritual core that will come down.
The
system is absolutely hollowed out – incapable of offering anything to the world
or to its own American people. No possibility of revival through the
current system exists. It will eat itself out in the civil war that is
coming. Nothing of it will remain. Without the elites being
sensitive to the needs of the larger society, this has to happen.
I
teach those imperial legions: our legions in Iraq, etc. will help propel the
coming apart – they are in the service of the emperor, not in the service of
the American people.
Conclusion
Vlahos spoke
in this topic at a
TedX event. While looking at the audience, his conclusion:
You are the elite.