By definition, a superpower is a sovereign state which projects power beyond its own borders through economic, military, technological, political, cultural, diplomatic or other means.
But as history shows us, superpowers come and superpowers go.
The Mongol Empire under Temüjin (Genghis Khan) was the largest empire in history; connecting East and West to enforce Pax Mongolica across Eurasia after slaughtering 11% of the world’s population.
Even so, the Mongol Empire lasted less than two hundred years.
The Roman Empire also enforced its version of ‘peace’ across vast territories, with imperium sine fine (“empire without end”) expanding under a succession of emperors until one day it didn’t.
With a whimper, after four hundred years of absolute dominance, Pax Romanum crumbled.
The British Empire also lasted four hundred years and, at its peak, ruled 23 percent of the world population and covered 24 per cent of the Earth.
Hard to imagine, isn;t it, given its current state of affairs.
The Pax Brittanica enforced by the new ‘worlds policeman’ ended in their humiliation at the Suez crisis in 1957 and has worsened ever since.
Which brings us to now.
Pax Americana notionally began in 1945 after the US ‘won’ the second world war, but really it started in 1991 with the fall of the USSR.
With China yet to rise, America’s unopposed hegemony became their unipolar moment — the birth of the world’s first ‘hyperpower’ — the US was literally the greatest nation on earth.
That was only 35 years ago; look at it now.
Donald J Trump was born in 1946 and has never known a day when America was not numero uno.
He spent his cossetted childhood in a 23-room mansion, getting $400 p/w pocket-money (equal to $6,648 per week in 2026) from daddy and demonstrated his patriotism in 1968 by dodging the draft due to ‘bone spurs’.
Never in his life has Donnie done it tough.
But even as his own fortunes waxed and (mostly) waned, so did the fortunes of the United States.
Among his chief gripes is that a succession of Presidents allowed the US to be ‘ripped off’ by their so-called allies.
For the record, DJT also hates plastic straws, reading, low water-pressure, exercise, bald men, sharks, wind farms, germs, and of course Mexicans.
What to do? No, I dont mean about the Mexicans, we’ve already seen Trump’s final solution for them. I mean the premature evacuation of Pax Americana.
Not a student of history himself — too much reading — somebody (Stephen Miller) must have told Trump that empires need emperors if they are going to last centuries. And that bloodshed in inevitable, perhaps even necessary.
For many the ‘Orange Khan’ represents flagellum dei, the scourge of god.
If rival superpowers Russia and China cannot be deterred from aggressively expanding their borders, why are we so critical of Trump’s foray against a Venezuelan dictator or Iran’s murderously repressive authoritarian regime?
What’s wrong with the idea of saving nations in plight? You can’t rescue the princess unless you hack-off the dragon’s head.
A strong and militant America may curtail China’s ambitions against Taiwan. A forceful and aggressive America might discourage Russia from gobbling up Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Poland or Finland.
What if us libtards have got it all wrong?
What if the only alternative to Trump’s mendacious, self-aggrandizing, yet still fundamentally democratic peace is the Pax Sinica of Emperor Xi?