
American decline is the idea that the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
is diminishing in
power
Power may refer to:
Common meanings
* Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work"
** Engine power, the power put out by an engine
** Electric power, a type of energy
* Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events
Math ...
on a relative basis
geopolitically,
militarily, financially,
economically
Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
, and
technologically. It can also refer to
absolute declines demographically,
socially
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives fro ...
, morally, spiritually,
culturally, in matters of
healthcare
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...
, and/or on
environmental issues
Environmental issues are disruptions in the usual function of ecosystems. Further, these issues can be caused by humans (human impact on the environment) or they can be natural. These issues are considered serious when the ecosystem cannot recov ...
.
There has been debate over the extent of the decline and whether it is relative or absolute.
Shrinking military advantages, deficit spending, geopolitical overreach, and a shift in moral, social, and behavioral conditions have been associated with American decline. The
ascent of China as a
potential superpower
A potential superpower is a sovereign state or other polity that is speculated to be or have the potential to become a superpower; a sovereign state or supranational union that holds a dominant position characterized by the ability to exert inf ...
emerged as a central concern in discussions about the decline of American influence since the late 2010s, with some scholars suggesting that China has the potential to challenge the United States' current position as the world's leading
superpower
Superpower describes a sovereign state or supranational union that holds a dominant position characterized by the ability to Sphere of influence, exert influence and Power projection, project power on a global scale. This is done through the comb ...
, though other scholars have criticized this view.
Scholars say that the perception of decline, or
declinism
Declinism is the belief that a society or institution is tending towards wiktionary:decline, decline. Particularly, it is the predisposition, caused by cognitive biases such as rosy retrospection, to view the past more favourably and the future mor ...
, has long been part of
American culture
The culture of the United States encompasses various social behaviors, institutions, and Social norm, norms, including forms of Languages of the United States, speech, American literature, literature, Music of the United States, music, Visual a ...
.
Rhetoric of American decline was prevalent in the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s, as well as during the
2008 financial crisis
The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...
.
Assessment
According to
Jeet Heer
Jeet Heer is a Canadian author, comics critic, literary critic and journalist. He is a national affairs correspondent for ''The Nation'' magazine and a former staff writer at ''The New Republic''. The publications he has written for include '' The ...
, U.S. hegemony has always been supported by three pillars: "economic strength, military might, and the soft power of cultural dominance."
According to American diplomat
Eric S. Edelman, the declinists, or those who believe America is in decline, have been "consistently wrong" in the past.
However, American political scientist
Aaron Friedberg cautioned that just because the declinists were wrong in the past does not mean they will be incorrect in their future predictions, and that some of the arguments by the declinists deserve to be taken seriously.
Political scientist
Matthew Kroenig argues Washington has "followed the same basic, three-step geopolitical plan since 1945. First, the United States built the current,
rules-based international system... Second, it welcomed into the club any country that played by the rules, even former adversaries... and third, the U.S. worked with its allies to defend the system from those countries or groups that would challenge it."
Deficit spending
Paul Kennedy
Paul Michael Kennedy (born 17 June 1945) is a British historian specialising in the history of international relations, economic power and grand strategy. He is on the editorial board of numerous scholarly journals and writes for ''The New Y ...
posits that continued deficit spending, especially on military build-up, is the single most important reason for decline of any great power. The costs of the wars in
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
and
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
were as of 2017 estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion, which Kennedy deems a major victory for
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...
, whose announced goal was to humiliate America by showcasing its casualty averseness and lack of will to persist in a long-term conflict. By 2011, the U.S. military budget — almost matching that of the rest of the world combined — was higher in real terms than at any time since WWII.
Kennedy made similar assessments about American decline in his book ''
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
''The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000'', by Paul Kennedy, first published in 1987, explores the politics and economics of the Great Powers from 1500 to 1980 and the reason for their dec ...
,'' in which he projected "a need to 'manage' affairs so that the relative erosion of the United States' position takes place slowly and smoothly." The book was published in 1989, three years before the
dissolution of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...
and several years before the bursting of the
Japanese asset price bubble
The was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991 in which real estate and stock market prices were greatly inflated. In early 1992, this price bubble burst and the country's economy stagnated. The bubble was characterized by rapid acceler ...
, leaving the United States as the sole remaining superpower and the dominant political and economic power internationally.
Geopolitical overreach

According to historian
Emmanuel Todd, an expansion in military activity and aggression can appear to reflect an increase in capacity while masking a decline in actual power. He observes that this occurred with the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
in the 1970s, with Russia currently, and with the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
, and that the United States may be going through a similar period in time.
There were 38 large and medium-sized
American facilities spread around the globe in 2005 — mostly air and naval bases — approximately the same number as Britain's 36 naval bases and army garrisons at its imperial zenith in 1898. Kennedy compares the U.S. situation to Great Britain's prior to
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, saying that the map of U.S. bases is similar.
Culture
Commentators such as
Allan Bloom
Allan David Bloom (September 14, 1930 – October 7, 1992) was an American philosopher, classicist, and academician. He studied under David Grene, Leo Strauss, Richard McKeon, and Alexandre Kojève. He subsequently taught at Cornell Un ...
,
E. D. Hirsch, and
Russel Jacoby have suggested American culture is in decline.
Samuel P. Huntington
Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist, adviser, and academic. He spent more than half a century at Harvard University, where he was director of Harvard's Center for International Affair ...
commented critically on a trend in American culture and politics of predicting constant decline since the late 1950s. As he saw it, declinism came in several distinct waves, namely in reaction to the Soviet Union's launch of
Sputnik
Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space progra ...
; to the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
; to the
oil shock of 1973; to Soviet tensions in the late 1970s; and to the general unease that accompanied the end of the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
.
According to American historian
Russell Jacoby
Russell Jacoby (born April 23, 1945) is an American academic and a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), an author and a critic of academic culture. His fields of interest are twentieth-century European and Amer ...
, the rise of academic
Marxism
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
,
radical political economies, and
critical literary and
cultural studies
Cultural studies is an academic field that explores the dynamics of contemporary culture (including the politics of popular culture) and its social and historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers investigate how cultural practices rel ...
since World War II has contributed to the decline of American culture.
William J. Bennett argued that America's cultural decline is signaling "a shift in the public's attitudes and beliefs".
According to the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, published in 1993, statistically portraying the moral, social and behavioral conditions of modern American society, often described as 'values', America's cultural condition was in decline with respect to the situations of 30 years ago, 1963. The index showed that there has been an increase in
violent crime
A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful Force (law), force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violence, vio ...
by more than 6 times,
illegitimate births by more than 5 times, the divorce rate by 5 times, the percentage of children living in single-parent homes by four times, and the
teenage suicide rate by three times during the 30-year period.
However, by 2011, Bennett and others had acknowledged that there had been a marked reduction in the violent crime rate, a reduction of suicide and divorce, as well as improvements in many other social metrics, since 1993. Bennett wrote that contemporary authors see these improving metrics as evidence that the social decline from the 1960s to the early 1990s was temporary, while others (including Bennett) remain sceptical.
According to Kenneth Weisbrode, though some statistics point to American decline (increased death rate, political paralysis, and increased crime), "Americans have had a low culture for a very long time and have long promoted it". He thinks that the obsession with decline is not something new, but something dating back to the Puritans. "Cultural decline, in other words, is as American as apple pie," Weisbrode argues. Weisbrode likens pre-revolutionary France and present-day America for their vulgarity, which he argues is "an almost natural extension or outcome of all that is civilized: a glorification of ego."
David A. Bell argued that the perception of decline is part of the culture. "What the long history of American 'declinism' — as opposed to America's actual possible decline — suggests," says David Bell, "is that these anxieties have an existence of their own that is quite distinct from the actual geopolitical position of our country; that they arise as much from something deeply rooted in the collective psyche of our chattering classes as from sober political and economic analyses."
According to
RealClearPolitics
RealClearPolitics (RCP) is an American political news website and polling data aggregator. It was founded in 2000 by former options trader John McIntyre and former advertising agency account executive Tom Bevan. It features selected polit ...
, declarations of America's declining power have been common since the beginning of the country. According to British journalist Nick Bryant, "warnings of American decline are by no means new". In the 20th century, declinism came in several distinct waves.
In a 2011 book,
Thomas L. Friedman and
Michael Mandelbaum argued that the United States was in the midst of "its fifth wave of Declinism." The first had come "with the 'Sputnik Shock' of 1957," the second with the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
, the third with President
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...
's "malaise" and the rise of Japan, and the fourth with the increased power of China. According to
Robert Lieber in 2021, “declinists’ proclamations about America have appeared ever since America's founding" and "it can be instructive to compare current arguments and prescriptions of the new declinism with the ideas of earlier eras."
Political polarization
David Leonhardt
David Leonhardt (born January 1, 1973) is an American journalist and columnist. Since April 30, 2020, he has written the daily "The Morning" newsletter for ''The New York Times''. He also contributes to the paper's Sunday Review section. His col ...
writes that "incomes, wealth, and life expectancy in the United States have stagnated for much of the population, contributing to an angry national mood and exacerbating political divisions. The result is a semidysfunctional government that is eroding many of the country’s largest advantages over China."
Jonathan Hopkin writes that decades of
neoliberal
Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pej ...
policies, which made the United States "the most extreme case of the subjection of society to the brute force of the market," resulted in unprecedented levels of
inequality, and combined with an unstable financial system and limited political choices, paved the way for political instability and revolt, as evidenced by the resurgence of the
Left
Left may refer to:
Music
* ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006
* ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016
* ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023
* "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996
Direction
* Left (direction), the relativ ...
as represented by
the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign and the rise of an "unlikely figure" like
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
to the presidency of the United States.
In 2021,
Michael McFaul, former
U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, stated his belief that the U.S. has faced a democratic decline, stemming from elite polarization and damage done by former president Donald Trump to trust in elections and bonds with democratic allies. McFaul states that the decline in democracy weakens national security and heavily restrains foreign policy.
According to
Michael Beckley, the domestic dysfunction in the United States has not meaningfully altered its power in the world. He writes, "This is the paradox of American power: the United States is a divided country, perpetually perceived as in decline, yet it consistently remains the wealthiest and most powerful state in the world — leaving competitors behind."
Economy
Economist Jeffrey Sachs observed the US share of world income was 24.6% in 1980, falling to 19.1% in 2011.
[ The ratio of average CEO earnings to average workers’ pay in the U.S. went from 24:1 in 1965 to 262:1 in 2005.] The Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...
's record of income inequality reached its highest point in 2018.
Some centrists believe that the American fiscal crisis stems from the rising expenditures on social programs or, alternatively, from the increases in military spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, both of which would lead to decline. However, Richard Lachmann argues that if military or overall spending is not pressuring the U.S. economy, they would not contribute to U.S. decline. Lachmann describes the real problem as "the misallocation of government revenue and expenditure, resulting in resources being diverted from the tasks vital to maintain economic or geopolitical dominance." Kennedy argues that as military expenses grow, this reduces investments in economic growth, which eventually "leads to the downward spiral of slower growth, heavier taxes, deepening domestic splits over spending priorities, and weakening capacity to bear the burdens of defense."
Health
The economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton
Sir Angus Stewart Deaton (born 19 October 1945) is a British-American economist and academic. Deaton is currently a Senior Scholar and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus at the Princeton School ...
attribute rising mortality, which is mostly impacting the working class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
, to the flaws in contemporary capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
.
Competition with China
China challenging the United States for global dominance constitutes a core issue in the debate over the American decline.
In 2020, China surpassed the US for a second time as the world's leading nation for foreign direct investment
A foreign direct investment (FDI) is an ownership stake in a company, made by a foreign investor, company, or government from another country. More specifically, it describes a controlling ownership an asset in one country by an entity based i ...
(FDI) due to Covid-19 lockdowns
During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of Non-pharmaceutical intervention (epidemiology), non-pharmaceutical interventions, particularly lockdowns (encompassing stay-at-home orders, curfews, quarantines, and similar socie ...
. Daniel H. Rosen, a long-time analyst of U.S.-China economic relationship, said that it is natural that foreign investment would decline sharply in the U.S. under extraordinary circumstances due to its open market economy, a feature that China lacks. Rosen said, "There is no reason to be concerned about the outlook for the FDI in the United States, provided that the U.S. is sticking with its basic open-market competitive system." Previously, in 2003, China surpassed the US once as the biggest recipient of FDI. Chinese FDI increased from 2020 to 2021 then dramatically decreased from a high of $344 bln down to $33 bln in 2023. By comparison, US FDI has maintained $148.8 billion, down $57.4 billion, or 28 percent, from $206.2 billion in 2022.
According to former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian diplomat and former politician who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and June to September 2013. He held office as the Leaders of the Australian Labo ...
, "China has multiple domestic vulnerabilities that are rarely noted in the media. The United States, on the other hand, always has its weaknesses on full public display but has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity for reinvention and restoration." Ryan Hass of the Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...
said that much of the narrative of China "inexorably rising and on the verge of overtaking a faltering United States" was promoted by China's state-affiliated media outlets. Hass went on to say, "Authoritarian systems excel at showcasing their strengths and concealing their weaknesses. But policymakers in Washington must be able to distinguish between the image Beijing presents and the realities it confronts."
According to American economist Scott Rozelle and researcher Natalie Hell, "China looks a lot more like 1980s Mexico or Turkey than 1980s Taiwan or South Korea. No country has ever made it to high-income status with high school attainment rates below 50 percent. With China's high school attainment rate of 30 percent, the country could be in grave trouble." By comparison, the US high school attainment rate is 91.1 percent, according to the latest census.[Hell, Natalie, and Rozelle, Scott. ''Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise''. University of Chicago Press, 2020.] Rozelle and Hell warn that China risks falling into the middle income trap due to the rural-urban divide in education and structural unemployment
Structural unemployment is a form of involuntary unemployment caused by a mismatch between the skills that workers in the economy can offer, and the skills demanded of workers by employers (also known as the skills gap). Structural unemployment is ...
.
Nicholas Eberstadt, an economist and demographic expert at the American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...
, said that current demographic trends will overwhelm China's economy and geopolitics, making its rise much more uncertain. He said, "The age of heroic economic growth is over."
Comparisons with earlier states
Samuel P. Huntington noticed that predictions of American decline have been part of American politics since the late 1950s. According to Daniel Bell, "many of America's leading commentators have had a powerful impulse consistently to see the United States as a weak, 'bred out' basket case that will fall to stronger rivals as inevitably as Rome fell to the barbarians or France to Henry V Henry V may refer to:
People
* Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026)
* Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125)
* Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161)
* Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (–1227)
* Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (1216–1281 ...
at Agincourt." Huntington critiqued declinism as misguided but praised it on some counts: "Declinism has predicted the imminent shrinkage of American power. In all its phases, that prediction has become central to preventing that shrinkage."
Political scientist Paul K. Macdonald writes that great powers can be in relative or absolute decline and discussed the ways they often respond. The most common is retrenchment (reducing some but not all commitments of the state).
Roman Empire
Certain commentators, historians, and politicians believe the U.S. is heir to the Roman Empire. According to Kristofer Allerfeldt, there are divergent views regarding Rome vs U.S. comparison. He believes that the "use of the Roman metaphor provides a scholarly patina to the expression of visceral hopes and fears."
Britain
Kennedy argues that "British financial strength was the single most decisive factor in its victories over France during the 18th century. This chapter ends on the Napoleonic Wars
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Napoleonic Wars
, partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
, image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg
, caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...
and the fusion of British financial strength with a newfound industrial strength." He predicts that, as the U.S. dollar loses its role as world currency, it will not be able to continue financing its military expenditures via deficit spending.
According to Richard Lachmann, the U.S. would last much longer if, like Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales
* The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...
, it could restrict particular families and elites from exclusively controlling offices and governmental powers.
Soviet Union
Historian Harold James published an article in 2020 titled "Late Soviet America", comparing the present-day United States to the former Soviet Union. James wrote that many aspects of the US now resemble the late Soviet Union: intensification of social conflict, ethnic/racial rivalries, and economic decline. He predicted that the dollar may lose its value and start looking like the Soviet rouble
The ruble or rouble (; rus, рубль, r=rubl', p=rublʲ) was the currency of the Soviet Union. It was introduced in 1922 and replaced the Russian ruble#Imperial ruble (1704-1922), Imperial Russian ruble. One ruble was divided into 100 kopecks ...
. James ended the article by saying that the economic decline will continue even if there is a change in leadership, pointing to Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
's inability to prevent collapse despite coming to power just a few years after Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...
's death.
Also in 2020, political commentator Julius Krein argued that the decline of the United States parallels the late Soviet Union vis-à-vis the "unmistakable" slide into gerontocracy
A gerontocracy is a form of rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are substantially older than most of the adult population.
In many political structures, power within the ruling class accumulates with age, making the oldest individu ...
.
Commentators
* Philosophers Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt (born 1960) is an American political philosopher and literary theorist. Hardt is best known for his 2000 book ''Empire'', which was co-written with Antonio Negri.
Hardt and Negri suggest that several forces which they see as do ...
and Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri (; ; 1 August 1933 – 16 December 2023) was an Italian political philosopher known as one of the most prominent theorists of autonomism, as well as for his co-authorship of ''Empire (Hardt and Negri book), Empire'' with Michae ...
theorize in the mid-1990s about an ongoing transition to an emergent construct created among ruling powers, which the authors call "Empire".
* American historian Morris Berman
Morris Berman (born August 3, 1944) is an American historian and social critic. He earned a BA in mathematics at Cornell University in 1966 and a PhD in the history of science at Johns Hopkins University in 1971. Berman is an academic humanist cu ...
wrote a trilogy of books published between 2000 and 2011 about the decline of American civilization.
* Igor Panarin, a political scientist and graduate of the Higher Military Command School of Telecommunications of the KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
, predicted that, starting in 1998, the US would collapse into six parts in 2010. He also wrote ''The Crash of the Dollar and the Disintegration of the USA'' (2009).
* American journalist Chris Hedges
Christopher Lynn Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American journalist, author, commentator and Presbyterian minister.
In his early career, Hedges worked as a freelance war correspondent in Central America for ''The Christian Science Monit ...
, in his 2018 book ''America, The Farewell Tour'', predicts that "within a decade, two at most," America will cease to be the dominant super-power in the world.
* Jean Chrétien
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien (; born January 11, 1934) is a retired Canadian politician, statesman, and lawyer who served as the 20th prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003. He served as Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, leader of t ...
, former prime minister
A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
of Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
(1993–2003), described Trump's election as a "monumental error" that heralded "the true end of the American empire" in a 2018 memoir.
Public opinion
A 2019 survey carried out by Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center (also simply known as Pew) is a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It ...
shows that a majority of Americans predicted the U.S. economy to be weaker in 2050. Also, the survey says, a majority of the people thought the U.S. would be "a country with a burgeoning national debt, a wider gap between the rich and the poor and a workforce threatened by automation."
In a poll conducted January 11–13, 2021, of 1,019 Americans, shortly after the January 6 Capitol attack, 79% of those surveyed said that America is "falling apart".
See also
* '' After the Empire'' by Emmanuel Todd
* American Century
The American Century is a characterization of the period since the middle of the 20th century as being largely dominated by the United States in political, economic, technological, and cultural terms. It is comparable to the description of the p ...
* ''Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
'', a 2024 action war film
* Decadence
Decadence was a late-19th-century movement emphasizing the need for sensationalism, egocentricity, and bizarre, artificial, perverse, and exotic sensations and experiences. By extension, it may refer to a decline in art, literature, science, ...
* ''The Decline of the West
''The Decline of the West'' (; more literally, ''The Downfall of the Occident'' or even more literally, "The Going-Under of the Evening Lands"; some of the poetry of the original is lost in translation) is a two-volume work by Oswald Spengler. Th ...
'' by Oswald Spengler
Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (29 May 1880 – 8 May 1936) was a German polymath whose areas of interest included history, philosophy, mathematics, science, and art, as well as their relation to his organic theory of history. He is best know ...
* Historic recurrence
Historic recurrence is the repetition of similar events in history. The concept of historic recurrence has variously been applied to overall human history (''e.g.'', to the rises and falls of empires), to repetitive patterns in the history of ...
* '' Idiocracy'', a 2006 science fiction comedy film
* Managed decline
* Pax Americana
* Post-Western era
* Rust Belt
The Rust Belt, formerly the Steel Belt or Factory Belt, is an area of the United States that underwent substantial Deindustrialization, industrial decline in the late 20th century. The region is centered in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic (Uni ...
* Sick man of Europe
* Societal collapse
Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse or systems collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of social complexity as an Complex adaptive system, adaptive system, the downf ...
* State collapse
State collapse is a sudden dissolution of a sovereign state. It is often used to describe extreme situations in which state institutions dissolve rapidly.
When a new regime moves in, often led by the military, civil society typically fails to ...
* 2008 financial crisis
The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...
References
{{United States topics
Declinism
Economic history of the United States
Foreign relations of the United States
Geopolitics
Political debates
Social philosophy
Societal collapse
Superpowers