The American Empire Cycle

COPYRIGHT 2025 DOUGLAS J. WOLF

Editors note: With the passage of the House Budget Bill, the United States has crossed a fiscal Rubicon. Neither party nor President Trump acknowledge the crucial threat our current debt and continued borrowing presents to the Republic. Interest payments on the debt are greater than the amount being spent Defense. We are approaching a zugzwang moment where every move we make will worsen the situation. In this except from my book, I intend to layout the case of Empire and the cycle that destroys them all.

Chapter 1, Introduction to the Empire Cycle and why America is going to the girls

Q: What is more dangerous to America, ignorance or apathy?

A: “I don’t know and I don’t care. “

Typical 21st Century American Answer

The quote above aptly illustrates the challenge facing the American Empire in the years to come. As an Empire grows and prospers, it eventually creates a majority of citizens who take for granted continued economic prosperity. When this occurs, the economic and cultural forces that drove the country to dizzying success and riches are lost. The generations that follow the empire builders reflect the sentiment of the opening quote, in that they neither understand what is happening nor care to find out the causes.

My intention in writing this book is to get you the reader to see:

• America is an Empire
• Empires have predictable cycles
• Where the US is in the empire cycle
• What you can do to protect yourself and your business
• What the US can look like in 30 years after the re-boot.

In this book, I relay to you my observations and predictions as to where the US is heading based on my understanding of the empires of the past. I am not trying to start a political revolution or change the way that you vote. That is for other people. I do not propose active solutions, only mitigation, as I believe that there are no solutions. I can only advise you, the reader, as to how to best protect yourself against the inevitable. I sincerely believe that the predilections of human behavior and the cycles of empires are unchangeable and therefore not subject to solutions. I did not intend to write a book for mass consumption and would indeed be surprised if more than a few thousand copies are ever sold. While every author wants an audience, the content of this book does not lend itself to the devoted consumers of People Magazine or ESPN TV.

What does every Empire have in Common?

The common element of empires that ran their course in the same manner as the American Empire is the influence of dominant women. I will make the case that the dominant women who initially started the empire cycle leading to prosperity, then unknowingly undertaking to destroy it.

Where to Start

If you are so inclined, you can continue reading chapter 2 and proceed linearly. Or, because this book is broken up into specific topical chapters you can turn to any of them immediately depending upon your particular interest. The theoretical basis behind my predictions in chapters 1-3, can be read at any time. The remaining chapters examine a more in-depth look at American institutions and the effect of the Empire Cycle on each.

My antagonists

The reasoning behind the predictions I make will undoubtedly be rejected by two groups of people; The professional historians who think that history is not subject to predictable cycles and each empire rises and falls of its own accord. Jared Diamond [1]has authored several books to that effect and while illuminating, he misses the driving force behind an empire’s downfall-a society which is exceptional and rare. The Durant’s in their book[2] focused on the breakdown of morality as an empire grows, eventually leading to its demise. A second group of thinkers that will likely reject my predictions are those romanticists who cling to the notion of “American Exceptionalism[3], an idea that claims America’s founding ideals and its religious propensity set it apart from all other empires of the past. I will stipulate that America did indeed have an exceptional beginning, but then has fallen into the same empire cycle as every other empire. After reading this book, I am confident you will agree with me.

Trends are the Key

For individuals the ability to perceive trends and act upon them early is the key to prosperity and/or avoiding disaster. That is why most IQ tests are based heavily on pattern recognition. In this book, I lay out my ideas as to what trends are the salient ones in the American Empire and how you can plan for those changes. Several other empires have experienced dominance and unparalleled prosperity in the past, similar to America today. In fact, most educated Americans, intuitively understand that our country closely resembles the Roman Empire and they vaguely know what transpired. I lay out the empire cycle that great empires have followed from inception to their decline.
More compellingly, our empire follows on our cousins the British, who ended their empire cycle in 1950.

[1] Guns. Germs and Steel 2005

[2] The Lessons of History, 1968

[3] American exceptionalism (cf. “exceptionalism“) refers to the belief that the United States differs qualitatively from other developed nations, because of its national credo, historical evolution, or distinctive political and religious institutions. The difference is often expressed in American circles as some categorical superiority, to which is usually attached some alleged proof, rationalization or explanation that may vary greatly depending on the historical period and the political context.

Past Empire Cycles

Many empires have traversed the same cycle as the American Empire and are listed in the table that follows. The salient common factor was the periodicity of the cycle. Note that the Roman Republic lasted about 250 years and was followed by another empire cycle which continued to dominate the world for another 250 years due to the incredible heights to which the Romans originally reached and despite the cyclical effects, were able to maintain their dominance for another period.

History does repeat

The only thing we learn from history is that humans do not learn from history[1]-especially in the long term. Historians have debated for centuries what caused empires to fall. In my view, human nature has not changed in 5,000 years and the environment of unparalleled affluence changes the way human beings view the present and the expectations of the future and the resulting behaviors they undertake. The evidence of this is overwhelming. But, I am not going to take you on a long academic treatise ala’ Francis Fukuyama (End of History).

Finally, in identifying and propounding these trends, I will be accused of being a pessimist and pandering to that audience which is already inclined to think the sky is falling. On the contrary, I think I am a realist. I do not posit that the sky is falling, but that the weather is drastically changing. It is a common failing of people to believe that the way things are today constitutes a permanent condition. More importantly, change of the type I describe in this book is incremental and humans are not biologically programmed to react or respond to slow change. [1]  Our hardwired nature is keenly attuned to present danger and not slow trends.

[1] Walter Cannon 1932

[1] Georg Hegel

For the meliorists[1] out there

A special note to the can-do spirits who read this work: It is the hubris of Americans in particular to believe there are solutions to every problem. I can assure you that an empire cycle is not a “problem” to be solved. It cannot be ameliorated by civic involvement or government intervention. Electing the right party or President will have little, if any, effect. It will follow its course despite any and all attempts at human intervention. This is not to say I am a pessimist, but I am only trying to give the discerning a framework for making decisions regarding their business and personal life. What you can do is mitigate the impact these trends will have on your business and family.

[1] The belief that improvement of society depends on human effort

Source Material

Many astute and well-respected authors have done their best to describe and suggest treatment for the political and social symptoms we are experiencing.

What you will find are writers from all points of view, who describe American societal/political problems and offer solutions-usually involving governmental policy. Where these writers all fail is first in thinking they understand the scope of problem and second in believing that they can offer workable solutions to the problems they describe.

The problems that the America Empire faces are insolvable and the trends are unstoppable.

Final Thoughts

In the course of writing this book I experienced mixed emotions regarding the way I see America’s future. Too, friends and professional colleagues with whom I discussed this scenario reacted in much the same way. Eventually, mostly reluctantly, they all agreed with me that the American Empire is on the course I predict and we all went through the emotional stages of grief so eloquently described in the book On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Those stages are described as anger, (Tea Party members) denial, (both major political parties) bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance. Today, those emotions are on display daily in the US by those in the media/political culture who are aware of what is happening but only see the pieces of the puzzle. Ergo, they rail against the changes that are happening without a coherent framework. Assuming you are a discerning reader, as you begin to buy into the ideas that I put forth, you too may experience some raw emotions. In particular, professional women seem to take this work as a personal attack-which indeed it is not.

Conservative folks tend to live in anger and denial, sincerely believing that I am wrong, that the “silent majority” will rise up and elect the right Congress and President to effect change. Liberals tend more to depression and denial; failing to appreciate the wealth drain which is occurring, eventually making it impossible to fund their favorite new progressive government programs much less maintaining the existing social safety net. More and more those on the left will decry the concentration of wealth and call for higher and higher taxes.

After a time, I could hear the creeping melancholy from my colleagues as the daily evidence piled up. In time, each reached the conclusion that the trends are inevitable and by accepting that as fact, are planning their lives accordingly. While no one is happy about it, they also are content that they have done their best, as can you.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
– George Bernard Shaw

Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.

-Arnold Toynbee

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos.
-Will Durant