By Jim Denison
Is America in decline? Yale historian Paul Kennedy argued in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers that nations ascend due to the supremacy of their material resources. When they inevitably spend their wealth on military expansion to maintain their power, they decline and fall. The Roman Empire is usually cited as Exhibit A of Kennedy’s thesis.
As America fights two wars while struggling to recover from economic recession, it’s easy to see why “declinists” link us to Rome, accusing our nation of “imperial overstretch” and predicting our collective demise. Vice President Biden made national headlines a few weeks ago by rejecting this argument. Was he right?
Cullen Murphy’s well-reviewed Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America is both amusing and engaging as the Vanity Fair editor-at-large explores one of history’s most-debated subjects: Why did Rome fall — and does it matter? The similarities between the Roman Empire and America are striking:
— Both built the most powerful military in their world, by far (America invests as much in military expenditures as the next 15 nations combined).
— The Roman road system, stretching some 53,000 miles, was about the length of the U.S. interstate system.
— The Roman Empire and its Mediterranean Sea would fit neatly inside America’s lower 48 states.
— Both cherish a glorious past and embrace a Manifest Destiny. Rome claimed to be an imperium sine fine (empire without end), while America’s dollar bill proclaims a novus ordo (new order).
Of course, dissimilarities are conspicuous as well:
— Rome never left the Iron Age; America has evolved from Industry to Information and Biotech.
— Slaves made up half of the Empire (some emperors owned 20,000 or more), while America ultimately rejected slavery.
— Rome had no middle class; America’s middle class is, in many ways, the nation’s core.
— Rome was never remotely as democratic as the United States.
–The Roman Empire generated few original ideas in technology and science; America prizes innovation and creativity.
— Romans were bawdy, cruel and principled; Americans are idealistic, friendly and sentimental.
So, are we Rome? Murphy warns us about armed forces too large to be affordable and too small to do all they are asked to do. Manpower shortages forced the Romans to accept into their armies the very barbarians who sacked their Empire. Privatizing our military (and prisons and other government functions) imperils accountability and oversight still today, he claims.
He worries about our tendency to misunderstand our enemies; nearly every Roman military defeat resulted from underestimating its opponent. Think of our unforeseen struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nine years after 9/11, most Americans still don’t know why they hate us.
And he cautions us about the “curse of empire” — that large systems are inherently unstable, endangering their survival in an unpredictable world. Few thought that arming the Taliban against the Soviet Union would presage today’s War on Terror.
But Murphy is no pessimist. He points to America’s deep faith in the promise of invention and reinvention as our singular advantage among the empires of world history. While Rome’s agrarian economy was unchanged across a millennium, in two centuries Americans ended slavery and leapt from farm to high-tech. Rome was committed to stability, America to self-improvement and entrepreneurship. We worry over threats to our global position from China, India and other rising powers; such angst is our great motivator.
Murphy is on to something of spiritual significance. Scripture clearly teaches that we have only begun the pilgrimage of faith. With Paul we “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14) as we “run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).
Complacency is spiritual cancer. The great challenge to an evangelical theology of salvation is that we all too easily mistake the beginning of the journey for the end. A wedding is not a marriage. Spiritual formation is not reserved for professional Christians. The resurrection of Jesus is not a concluded holiday but a living reality.
According to Murphy, the way to avoid Rome’s fate is clear: “the antidote is being American.” How American is your faith?