Comments on Empire

A bootstrapping nation who has become the most powerful on earth after a couple hundred years of existence is pretty amazing to come from.

but whatevz

Our empire, as decribed in the book American Empire (it's back home, can't remember who wrote it) and other fine books about energy and empires, is the successor to the prior coal-based empire of Great Britain, the British Empire.

Because coal has less energy (BTU, or British Thermal Unit; you could use Kilojoules if you want to be metric) than oil, we have had a naval superiority with our oil based empire, but now that oil is passing it's peak, we have to find other sources.

Or, like the Polish Empire, the Dutch Empire (wind/sail), and the British Empire (coal), we'll become another former empire instead.

There's nothing wrong with being a former empire, the Dutch live far longer than we do and are a lot taller, with better medical care and more nutritious food, and a heck of a lot less stress. And the Greeks and Italians and Spanish seem to have a lot more fun at parties now that they don't have to run empires.

But if we want to be First, we'll have to get off our oil addiction and find something else, which ironically may be wind with stored fuel cells supplemented by solar. Kind of going back to the beginning, in a way. Converting coal to oil is at best a temporary measure, or stopgap.

@2 - Will, the United States has the largest nuclear powered navy in the world.

@3 - Mahtil69

Nuclear won't matter unless we can get nuclear tanks, transport trucks and cargo planes (or those that benefit from nuclear plants, like electric). Naval superiority is fringe now; we're not going to hit decentralized terrorist/paramilitary groups in the heart of the Chinese (or Soviet, or Sudanese, or whatever) mainland with ships.

Dear Charles Mudede,

Girl, you crazy.

Regards

Seems like a good thing that the sole remaing superpower would be a free and open democratic society that trades with the rest of the world.

@2

One problem with that view is that we gained naval superiority in 1812... Long before oil was in play, unless your talking about whale oil...

The Romans maintained military superiority not by having some remarkable transformative capability, but by three main factors:

1. unprecedented military discipline,

2. superior technology, and

3. willingness to copy the successful tactics of their opponents, and even hire the military specialists of former adversaries to form auxiliary units.

Something which gave the Romans an edge off the battlefield was their use of troops as construction workers during times of relative peace. Remarkable feats of civil engineering such as the aqueducts were thus made possible. Maybe instead of looking for more opportunities to start wars, the US military should consider this example above all?

Tom Friedman wrote about this recently. The rest of the world may not be ecstatic with American dominance and power, but would they be happier if China or Russia filled this role?

Got disposal?

Didn't think so.

Nuclear is so passe.

And, contrary to what you may think, we actually lost the War of 1812 and if we didn't have great ambassadors who bargained well, would have literally lost half our country as a result.

There's a reason why it's the White House. Cause it got burned when the British torched it. Not exactly a resounding victory ... the only thing that saved our bacon was the British wanted us to go away so they could fight other countries that had real navies and armies.

@10

Regardless, that was when we gained naval superiority. After Old Iron Sides sunk three British Frigates in quick succession the British Navy was ordered not to engage the US Navy without overwhelming superiority of numbers. The first time any such order had been given in the British Navy since prior to the Battle of Trafalgar. The Admiralty was soundly chastised by the British press for issuing the order which was seen as a terrible humiliation to the British Empire.

and yes, we originally used whale oil (why Nantucket is so important), then shale oil and other oil from Pennsylvania, then petroleum oil.

But that's a bit too long to describe, and not that relevant to the point that ... things ... CHANGE.

We adapt or we stop being the empire. That's not always bad, although it always feels like it is at first.

@10 -

Nuclear is so passe.

Maybe for large-scale generation of electricity.

Given that a nuclear sub can stay submerged for over a year, and the generated waste is a fraction of what is produced by, say, a nuclear power plant, I really don't think lack of disposal is going to render the US Navy obsolete.

Militarily speaking, the capability of a nuclear powered fleet far outweighs the inherent disadvantages.

Perhaps I should have been more precise about nuclear, Mahtli69.

American style nuclear plants, all of which are DIFFERENT from all the other ones, are passe.

Nuclear reactors on subs are built so they're interchangeable, just as Canada's CANDU nuclear reactors and France's nuclear reactors are.

Want nuclear? Develop one spec and roll it out nationwide.

You still have a problem if you're making nuclear weapons grade waste, which we do, and that's why I said disposal is a problem - and no, salt mines don't work.

@14 - OK, I more or less agree with that. But I thought the whole point of this post was military advantage in history, not developing alternate energy for domestic consumption.

And a solar-powered submarine would be tricky, to say the least.

Rome fell, and so did all the others. We shouldn't get too comfortable or comlacent.

Re: this war of 1812 nonsense.

We did not "lose" the war of 1812. Any damage inflicted on the US during that was in response to damage visited on Great Britain and Canada.

At no time, and in no capacity did the US have anything even remotely close to an edge of naval superiority during or after the war of 1812. The US had an excellent frigate navy, which was extremely small and only capable of bee stings, glorified piracy. The British navy was massively huge in comparison and was capable of total freedom of action anywhere in the world at the time. Naval supremacy would mean Great Britain would be incapable of invading the mainland US which happened on several occasions.

In addition, the US was a minor naval power up until the civil war. Chile and Brazil had larger navies for most of the 1800's, before and after the American Civil war. Hemispherical superiority probably occurred during, I would say, with the ABC cruisers in the 1880's, and really took off with the great white fleet and teddy Roosevelt. To again show that hegemony even in the hemisphere didn't exist for the US, the first protected cruiser, was Chilean, not American.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_cruiser

For those interested in the beginnings of military-industrial complex, start with the ABC cruisers- they were named after cities in the districts and states of their patrons in congress. This was a direct pre-cursor to American imperialism.

American naval primacy didn't occur until world war II.