The stages of the fall of every empire

[gangleri2001]

Hi there,

I was wondering what makes an empire fall and I've discovered, that every empire on the earth could fit to the following stages that I've made up. Let's see them:

Negation: "We cannot fall, we're the best." (Note: This stage can be seen in its latent status during the rise and the golden age of the empire)

Blame others: "It's not our fault, it's other's fault." (Note: This phase can also begin during the golden age of the empire, specialy when another empire rises.)

Shock: "No!!! That can't be true!!!"

Re-negation: "You see, the facts still show that we are still very important."

Farce: "Even though the facts don't suport this any longer, we still pretend that we are very important."

Whining: "Why?!! WHY?!! What has happened to us?!! WHY?!!! "

Partial admission: "Ok, we're no longer any great empire... but we're still very important."

Total admission with hope: "Ok, we're no longer anything... But the future still shines to us because we're still very important for the mankind."

Concealed vassalage: "You see, power is shifting up there, we got to align with the new power in order to keep the world in order. Why us? Because we are still very important."

Run as fast as you can: "Mmmm... the power/military forces/whatever we aligned to is also falling. We better run away as fast as we can. But don't worry, we'll be back soon. Do you wonder why? Because we are still very important."

Who cares?: "That happened long ago. Who cares? Anyway, you're right: we're still very important."

(Final note: Two or more phases can happen at the same time.)

What do you think about it? Is this right? What would you add or remove? Could you provide any example? I've done an example, here you got it:

Negation: China, India, United States

Blame others: United States, UK during WWI (It's Germany's fault!!!)

Shock: UK during and after WWII

Re-negation: UK

Farce: France

Whining: France, Spain 100 years ago

Partial admission: Spain 100 years ago, France coming soon

Total admission with hope: Spain, Portugal

Concealed vassalage: Spain, Portugal

Run as fast as you can: Fall of Rome

Who cares?: Rome

 

[GenMarshall]

I'd remove the United States from the list.

 

[r_rolo1]

You forgot one step:

-Misguided faith :continue to do old stuff , even if it clear that it doesn't work anymore..."If it worked in the past, when we were pwning, it should work now" . Easily seen in military.....

 

[gangleri2001]

I'd remove the United States from the list.

You should read the notes in order to fully understand the examples.

You forgot one step:

-Misguided faith :continue to do old stuff , even if it clear that it doesn't work anymore..."If it worked in the past, when we were pwning, it should work now" . Easily seen in military.....

So true, and clear examples of this are the UK and France

 

[Winner]

Too complicated and useless.

There are only 8 clear phases:

1) Overconfidence - belief that nothing can challenge the empire's position.
2) Ignorance - stemming from overconfidence, ignoring the possible threats to empires dominance
3) Overstretch - the empire tries to maintain order in the world, but overconfidence and ignorance prevents it from realizing that it can't deal with everything at the same time, alone.
4) Economic decline - not a direct result of the overstretch. Simply an economic crisis which is aggrevated by the previous phase.
5) Political decline - failure of the leadership to acknowledge the economic and military problems the empire is facing and solve them.
6) Moral decline - above mentioned problems make the population cynical, pessimistic and unwilling to support the empire as it used to.
7) Military decline - the ailing economy, political instability and moral decline affects the military, lack of resources and will makes it weaker and less capable of defending the empires interests, or in the worst case, it's very existence.
8) The FALL

The further you get, the harder it is to break the vicious circle.

 

[Swedishguy]

Too complicated and useless.

There are only 8 clear phases:

1) Overconfidence - belief that nothing can challenge the empire's position.
2) Ignorance - stemming from overconfidence, ignoring the possible threats to empires dominance
3) Overstretch - the empire tries to maintain order in the world, but overconfidence and ignorance prevents it from realizing that it can't deal with everything at the same time, alone.
4) Economic decline - not a direct result of the overstretch. Simply an economic crisis which is aggrevated by the previous phase.
5) Political decline - failure of the leadership to acknowledge the economic and military problems the empire is facing and solving them.
6) Moral decline - above mentioned problems make the population cynical, pessimistic and unwilling to support the empire as it used to.
7) Military decline - the ailing economy, political instability and moral decline affects the military, lack of resources and will makes it weaker and less capable of defending the empires interests, or in the worst case, it's very existence.
8) The FALL

The further you get, the harder it is to break the vicious circle.

Sounds like what Yankland is going through right now.

 

[GinandTonic]

Lots of Empires were all but personality cults and with the death of the leader started to collapse. The collapse might take a generation or two but is enivatable. These wouldnt fit your model, but I guess they arent the Empires you are describing.

To be honest most of the points you describe are too general to represent a narrative that tells us anything. Clearly whoever is top-dog will one day cease to be top-dog, and clearly there will be elements that deny that. Empires fall for different reasons and the diferences are far more specific and profound than the superficial similarities.

 

[Kyle92]

It was germanys Fault!

 

[Ecofarm]

You forgot one step:

-Misguided faith :continue to do old stuff , even if it clear that it doesn't work anymore..."If it worked in the past, when we were pwning, it should work now" . Easily seen in military.....

Because we fight wars the same way we did before?

I wish.

 

[Winner]

Sounds like what Yankland is going through right now.

Yanks are in phase 3, at most.

 

[scy12]

At some point of the decline it would be an one way road but there are examples of empires that declined , and then soon rise again (and then decline again and fall as nothing is forever). Because one enters phase 3-4 doesn't mean it can't reverse the situation if luck is on their side but due the nature of competition with other empires continuing the decline is the more likely scenario.

 

[Pokurcz]

Yanks are in phase 3, at most.

Yanks are deffenetly in Phase 4, just check the standings of the dollar and the banking crisis.

The empire does not have to be global, for example Russia should be in the "run as fast as you can" cathegory and having passed to the beginnings of a second life without touching "who cares?" cathegory, according to gangleris list.

 

[r_rolo1]

Because we fight wars the same way we did before?

I wish.

I didn't said that... but i'll give you a historical example.

When Portuguese entered in the Indic ocean they found out that the best way of dealing with the naval powers there was by blade ( enter in the enemies ship and fight there by the sword ) because, unlike their enemies there, they used armour, which gave them a advantage even against the guns of the time. So they started doing ships with high castles in the back, to maximize their advantage, a thing that forced the ships to be larger ( otherwise they would turn to the side at the first wind ).

When dutch arrived there they discovered that they were much faster than the Portuguese, because their ships had no castles and , because of that ,they were thinner. The Portuguese soon realized that they were having a hard time catching the Dutch ( to invade their ships ), but never decided to do faster ships due to nobleman oposition ( no sword fight = no glory ). And as Dutch could pick their battles, it was easy to see what happened....

I was simply stating that decaying empires tend to attach too much to antiquated formulas and ways of waging war. And that can cause a military breakdown easily ( like France 1940 ), that will speed up the decay.

 

[Winner]

Yanks are deffenetly in Phase 4, just check the standings of the dollar and the banking crisis.

Inconclusive. It's too soon to say if this is just another minor economic downturn, or a beginning of more serious negative trend.

The empire does not have to be global, for example Russia should be in the "run as fast as you can" cathegory and having passed to the beginnings of a second life without touching "who cares?" cathegory, according to gangleris list.

Empires rise and empires fall, that's how it works. China proves that an empire can fall without being completely destroyed, so it will reappear after some period of chaos.

 

[gangleri2001]

Too complicated and useless.

There are only 8 clear phases:

1) Overconfidence - belief that nothing can challenge the empire's position.
2) Ignorance - stemming from overconfidence, ignoring the possible threats to empires dominance
3) Overstretch - the empire tries to maintain order in the world, but overconfidence and ignorance prevents it from realizing that it can't deal with everything at the same time, alone.
4) Economic decline - not a direct result of the overstretch. Simply an economic crisis which is aggrevated by the previous phase.
5) Political decline - failure of the leadership to acknowledge the economic and military problems the empire is facing and solving them.
6) Moral decline - above mentioned problems make the population cynical, pessimistic and unwilling to support the empire as it used to.
7) Military decline - the ailing economy, political instability and moral decline affects the military, lack of resources and will makes it weaker and less capable of defending the empires interests, or in the worst case, it's very existence.
8) The FALL

The further you get, the harder it is to break the vicious circle.

Well, your scale shows how does an empire actually fall, while mine shows how does an empire fall in psycological terms. It's just like that scale that shows the stages of a patient that will die. Sorry if I didn't tell before

 

[QuoVadisNation]

Empires can fall, and have, without the following:

Partial admission, shock, negation, blaming others, run as fast as you can, who cares, negation; even total admission with hope is questionable because we don't know much about other empires..

You are thinking too much in a post-colonial European perspective. A mere understanding of how the Roman empire worked showed that Rome conclusively had none of those traits. If you want, it'd be easier to just take away those 'traits' and say that prior to destruction, pride takes over.

also:

Who cares?: Rome

The only Romans who "didn't care" necessarily were the Christians or the second class citizens on the periphery.

 

[Den Valdron]

Inconclusive. It's too soon to say if this is just another minor economic downturn, or a beginning of more serious negative trend.

Not really. Average wages peaked out in 1973. Since then, the average American wage earner has lost almost 20% of its purchasing power. A number of consequences flow from this. In order to make up for diminished family income, many families have added a second wage earner, some take second or third jobs. Savings rates have dropped to zero. Debt levels have skyrocketed to unheard of levels.

Also since 1973, and particularly under the Reagan/Bush years there have been massive shifts of income and wealth from middle and working classes to the richest 10%, and particularly the richest 1%.

During this time, the United States in economic and industrial terms has steadily lost ground. The consumer electronics industry belongs to Japan and other countries. Textiles has largely left. The basic resource industries, like steel have left or are moribund. America runs second in its own territory with automobiles. In software its losing ground to places like Japan and India, if it hasn't already. America is essentially surrendering all of the commanding heights, including the technological cutting edges.

I think its a mistake to focus overmuch on transient economic problems. The real story is the big picture over decades, and on that front, every indicator has lead inevitably downwards.

 

[scy12]

Empires can fall, and have, without the following:

Partial admission, shock, negation, blaming others, run as fast as you can, who cares, negation; even total admission with hope is questionable because we don't know much about other empires..

You are thinking too much in a post-colonial European perspective. A mere understanding of how the Roman empire worked showed that Rome conclusively had none of those traits. If you want, it'd be easier to just take away those 'traits' and say that prior to destruction, pride takes over.

also:

Who cares?: Rome

The only Romans who "didn't care" necessarily were the Christians or the second class citizens on the periphery.

I can't see how the Christians didn't care as the almost exclusive majority of the population of the Roman empire was Christians when it fell and they where conquered by Muslims.

 

[holy king]

I can't see how the Christians didn't care as the almost exclusive majority of the population of the Roman empire was Christians when it fell and they where conquered by Muslims.

islam wasnt around when the roman empire fell.

 

[scy12]

islam wasnt around when the roman empire fell.

That is just wrong since the Roman empire fell centuries after Islam was already one of the biggest religions.