Julian Go
@juliango.bsky.social
Professor of Sociology & Faculty Affiliate, Committee on International Relations & Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture, University of Chicago https://voices.uchicago.edu/juliango/
Political science
44%
Sociology
35%
The conditions for this have been set for a while: growing economic inequality within countries and growing economic multipolarity globally. And I fear Trump 2.0, without worrying about reelection and just interested in smashing and grabbing, is the final trigger. 7/7
I have been fretting about this ever since I started researching and writing about the history of empires (culminating in my 2011 book, Patterns of Empire). And it is keeping me awake at night. Which sucks for me :) 6/7
This is not hyperbole. It is history. It is how the world wars of the 19th century erupted (the Napoleonic wars). It is how WWI and WWII happened (they were really just 1 long world war). And I fear what we have in our future. 5/7
Rival regionalisms form; geopolitical blocs are created and hardened; mercantilist imperial networks replace global free trade. Then the only way the global field can withstand this instability is the final outcome: world war. 4/7
This only serves to do one thing: anger and embolden geopolitical rivals to get more aggressive too. More imperialist machinations by all parties ensue, some subtle or covert, others more open and violent. 3/7
In the past, declining hegemonic powers (or rising ones) - like Britain or Germany - tend to enhance their imperialistic aggression. Desperate to regain ailing power & wealth, they turn away from market mechanisms/free trade & instead use their only hand: military might. 2/7
No doubt about it: Trump's new imperialism re Venezuela & its unabashed discourse of aggression is exactly what desperate empires do as they fall, and it is exactly what has led to revived imperialism and world war in the past. It's all so predictable & and also so dangerous 1/7
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note too the photo from Trump's war room basically trying to imitate the pics of when Obama witnessed the mission on bin Laden. The attempt to copy is so sad. The unoriginality laughable 6/6
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Many other precedents to Trump's new imperialism (which he himself boasts about) incl the Monroe Doctrine. 5/6
For more see my "American Decline and Performative War, or How to Do Things with Force" (2020) in Frederic Merand, ed., Coping with Geopolitical Decline. 4/6
In other words, while the attack was meant to demonstrate American greatness, it was little else than an admission o f American weakness, desperation and decline. 3/6
It was a "performative war" meant to ward off criticisms of the Reagan admin & deny American decline through spectacular feats of military power in the name of freedom and anticorruption. 2/6
Trump War Room on X: "America is back 🇺🇸 https://t.co/clnZQXHxWF" / X
America is back 🇺🇸 https://t.co/clnZQXHxWF
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One of the pathetic things about Trump's new imperialism is that it isn't even original. When Reagan invaded Grenada in 83 the admin boasted it meant America was back & had gotten over its "Vietnam syndrome." But this was an expression of weakness not strength 1/6
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Do those folks critical of dems and say Dems are the same as Trump actually believe that Harris would have also sent in the US military to Venezuela to capture Maduro? She might have used other means but this blatant empire-ing is surely more of a Trump/Repub thing.
Falling empires do not behave well. #trump