Elementary Unit 2 : The Fall of the United States of America

Tier 11 Submission : by 30 Mar 2131

Introduction

At the beginning of the 21st Century the United States of America possessed the world's most powerful economy and its most advanced military technology. There were already several factors, however, that jeopardised this status and the main ones are summarised below.

National Economy

Americans had become used to a high standard of living compared with most other peoples. High levels of personal credit were a norm, and national indebtedness was at the highest level tolerated by any major country's government before or since. The productivity and competitiveness of national industry was nonetheless somewhat below world averages. International competition was rising very sharply, particularly from China, and protectionist measures against imports were being progressively implemented. The US of A was highly dependent on petrochemical fuels, but its direct reserves were already substantially depleted.

It must be remembered that social sciences were then very much less advanced than technical sciences, and economists still attached importance to qualitative macroeconomic factors such as goodwill and confidence that have been largely discredited today. In spite of the perilous state of its economy, therefore, America's trade dominance was so great that the acknowledgement of its decline was expected to precipitate a worldwide depression. As a result, world financial institutions effectively insulated the US of A from the consequences of its own excesses, and this state of denial had already persisted for several decades.

Foreign Affairs

The US of A was traditionally an insular country and throughout much of its history had been a reluctant participant in foreign wars. This behaviour changed in the second half of the 20th Century, initially as a counterbalance to Russian communist expansionism but ultimately to defend access to economic resources including most significantly oil in the Middle East. America was also a strongly committed sponsor of Israel, the ill-fated nation that had been created in an international compromise as a homeland for displaced Jewish peoples.

In 2001, New York was attacked by stateless terrorists of a fanatical Muslim persuasion, and nearly 3000 civilians died when airliners (in those days manually controlled) were flown into buildings. Historians disagree about whether this event was a justification or a pretext for increased US military intervention in the Middle East. Whatever the reason, military occupation rapidly followed and ultimately engaged all the (then) Islamist states of the region. The series of invasions was opposed by most other countries.

There was as yet no World Government, but an organisation called the United Nations existed to foster international relations, peace and justice. It had no executive power except the moral authority of a consensus of nearly all the world's nations. The UN increasingly opposed the US of A's military adventures, and the US of A, for its part, afforded the UN less and less respect. As Kobayashi[1] points out, the US of A's isolationist reflexes had combined with its international strategic imperatives to create an intolerable slight to the world.

Domestic Values

Although the population of the US of A was culturally and ethnically diverse, its core was of European origin and fervent in its Christian faith. In spite of ostensible high moral standards, however, social behaviour compared unfavourably with world norms in many respects. Systematic racial segregation had ended a generation before, but integration of racial groups remained limited in geographical extent. Crime and violence was endemic, and exacerbated by a constitution that tolerated the carrying of guns. Indulgence to excess in both illegal substances (narcotics) and legal ones (alcohol and high-fat food) was rife.

Consumption of resources in the US of A was unsustainable according to today's measures, and this in a world that was then beginning to understand the fragility of mankind's environment. Early efforts to reduce the primary agents of environmental damage (carbon dioxide was among the first to be recognised) were resisted by successive US governments.

The US of A considered itself to be a two-party democracy, though its true democratic credentials became increasingly questionable. Neither party cared to address fundamental economic weaknesses for fear of offending a fickle electorate. The Republicans were so beholden to commerce that they falsified science in their rejection of environmental initiatives, as well as tolerating grave injustices in wealth distribution. The Democrats turned readily to protectionism, and acquiesced with xenophobic public attitudes that would ultimately lead to internecine persecution. The political executive was moreover decadent by the beginning of the 21st Century. Historical rejection of oligarchy lead instead to a perverse public tolerance of inadequate Presidents.

Increasing Isolationism

The US of A had few friends in the world by 2010. Natural allies were weary of America's failure to accept the responsibilities that attend top nation status. Instability in world financial systems, precipitated by America's economic weakness, damaged all countries. In the same period, instability in world climate was a mounting concern, and weather-based catastrophes were widely blamed on the US of A too. Nbebe [3] shows that in many cases these causalities were perceived rather than real, but also demonstrates that perception was a powerful agent in these less rational times in which global communications media were still fresh and credible.

America perhaps could not win, but critically it did not try to. Anti-UN feeling became institutionalised on all sides of domestic politics, and defiance of international opinion threatened to become a qualifying requirement for participation in government [2]. Significantly at this time, the UN was itself deeply engaged in the promotion of world community. China's rise as an economic superpower was itself characterised by isolationism in these early years. Africa was still the world's 'continent of disgrace'[3], but efforts to redeem this position were beginning. In both these examples and others, there was a virtuous congruence of goals: greater inclusiveness and trust brought benefits to both sides, and international investment brought real returns. This was not the case in America, where an acceptance of the US of A's decadence would inevitably admit a decline of living standards.

Britain was at that time a union of modern England, Wales, Scotland and parts of Ireland, and still nominally a titular monarchy. Though long since reduced to a second-tier nation with waning influence even in the European theatre, Britain was nonetheless recognised as the country that had most fully experienced and adapted to a decline from world dominance. It was moreover a long-standing ally of the US of A, having fought alongside US troops in the early Middle Eastern conflicts. A former British President and early activist for the future European Federation, Tony Blair, was selected by the UN as its ideal Ambassador. Not for the first time in his life, Blair proved to be largely ineffectual, and was indeed widely vilified and ridiculed for his ingratiating manner and craven political expediency. Everything changed in 2023, however, when he was assassinated by activists of what would later become the American League.

The perpetrators were detained. Their leader, ironically, was called Bush, the same name as the notorious 'nadir President' [4] of the turn of the 21st Century who was superficially at least a close friend of Blair, and who had himself been murdered after leaving office. The UN's demands for justice were robust, but its prosecution by the American executive was deliberately treated as a domestic matter. In what was construed as a studied slight, no foreign witnesses were called. A well-known actor had been found guilty in a recent trial of administering narcotics and performing indecent acts with minors. Bush ultimately received a lesser sentence.

The attitude of the rest of the world towards America is widely considered to have changed as a result of this single episode [1,2,3,4,5,6]. In particular, advocacy began to grow for the theory that the pretence of America's economic well-being was more deleterious to world markets than the acceptance of its bankruptcy. At the same time, the UN redoubled its efforts to stabilise trouble-spots without the help of the American military. Beleaguered nations, hitherto dependent on America's protection, found themselves in a position of choice and several turned their backs on the increasingly marginalised US of A. The most hurtful of these to the American psyche was undoubtedly Israel.

The Collapse of American Influence Overseas

The first quarter of the 21st Century was characterised by worldwide fear of the emergence of a regressive strain of Islamic fundamentalism. The phenomenon was not confined to the Middle East, but the American engagement was mainly centred in that theatre. There were two persistent flashpoints: one was a simmering low-level conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and the other was America's repeated contention that one or another of the region's despotic governments was attempting to develop or deploy nuclear weapons .

The first of these confrontations was both tragic and ironic. A formerly stateless people (the Israeli Jews) corralled a still stateless people (the Palestinians) into small and under-resourced territories, exercising repression while attempting to consolidate an illegal hold on annexed land outside Israel's ceded boundaries. The usual tactic was the building of settlements, followed by the moving of Jewish communities into them. Conscripted soldiers were then deployed to suppress the inevitable civil disorder. Although criticism of Israel was for years dismissed as anti-Semitism, history judges the protagonists of this era severely. A people whose grandparents had suffered so terribly in the Nazi era in the 1930s and 40s might have been expected to show more humility and respect for human rights.

With America's influence in the region waning, however, a transformation began. Israel was left with little choice other than to plead for the world's mercy, and the adopted tactics were a combination of contrition and blaming Washington. The effect on the region was remarkable. Secular politicians in Egypt, Turkey, the Gulf states and Lebanon were able to claim the eventual success of their co-operative policies. First Pakistan and then Afghanistan, until now hotbeds of Islamic militancy, followed suit with the first truly democratic elections for generations. In 2031, an accord was signed in Tehran which cemented the reconciliation of the Arab nations with the developed nations of Europe and Asia. Significant undertakings to respect the rights of women were conceded by Islamic states. In return, the withdrawal of the American garrisons in the region was demanded, in particular the one in Baghdad that then comprised 50,000 men, the largest permanent concentration of foreign troops on the planet. The Americans would be allowed only a transitionary period of five years before total evacuation. During this period the American army would be confined to a single location in Saudi Arabia.

America refused, and Europe responded by ejecting US diplomatic staff from embassies all over the continent. During the envoys' period of absence, several capitals changed the name of the street or square occupied by the US Embassy to include the name of Blair. There was even a concerted political initiative to reclaim American embassies as sovereign assets and then cede them to previously-unrepresented Middle Eastern states. Syria was a favourite proposal. The plan was enacted in only one place (Moscow), but the calculated insult to America was obvious, and the European press revelled in it.

The Penitent Encyclical

For many Americans, the surest justification of their nation's values and actions could be found in the Christian Bible. With Islam now adopting a conciliatory stance, however, a new climate of ecumenism was pervading the major religions. 2038 was an unprecedented International Year of Faith, in which the common elements of human devotion were celebrated. In the same year, the continent of Africa was declared free of AIDS, a disease that had been a worldwide scourge for half a century. Central to the religious ceremonial was the consecration of Jerusalem as the first World Holy City. Rome and Mecca were to follow within a decade.

American church-goers were largely unsympathetic to the trend, however. The US Conference of Bishops was censured by Rome for its continued refusal to admit homosexuals to the priesthood. The practice of the Christian faith continued to diverge on the two sides of the Atlantic, culminating in schism in 2045 with the Penitent Encyclical, which relaxed a thousand years of strict Papal edict in what was essentially a confession that the churches of the modern era had corrupted God's will. The acceptance that birth control was not only permissible but desirable in certain circumstances was too much for many US Catholics, though their peers in similarly-devout Latin America found it easier to embrace. By the end of the decade, female priests were accepted throughout the rest of the world too.

During 2051, the Pope visited New York and blessed the World Chapel in the UN building. He met the President in private, but the Vatican authorities were offended by a White House press statement criticising the Pontiff's recent pronouncement that secular government was preferable for cosmopolitan societies. They responded with one of their own, disclosing that the US government had refused the World Council of Churches' request to hold an ecumenical commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the WTC atrocities later that year.

The American League

It was not only the executive of the US of A that found it difficult to forgive the rest of the world for past and current injuries. The American League was by now a fully-fledged political organisation, claiming a membership of 20 million which made it larger at grass-roots level than either of the two parties in Congress (as the US of A's legislature was called). The League's precursor in the group that killed Blair had specific if reactionary goals, but the AL of the mid-21st Century was a less principled faction, preoccupied only with the idea that America should reassert its ascendancy and in so doing punish and subjugate its enemies. Membership was predominantly working-class and white, and racist overtones were evident. Guns and crosses were prominent icons.

With the League well established, mainstream American politics began to appease it and adopt elements of its thesis. In order to understand this expediency, it must be remembered that America had done little to adopt the progressive models of democracy of Europe and beyond. By 2050, for example, RFEs (Representatives of the Federation of Europe) could hold office for a maximum of ten years, effectively limiting parliamentary participation to those with a genuine commitment to serve the public. In the US of A, by contrast, a Congressman pursued a job for life, and flagrant personal benefits along with it. The basest aspects of populism were accommodated without conscience.
Intellectuals and liberals began to leave the country in significant numbers. Jews, African-Americans and Native Americans mainly went to Europe and particularly to Canada, while those of oriental origin mostly chose countries in the Chinese orbit.

Li Yuan, the first elected Chinese premier used his inaugural speech to warn America of the danger of enacting its own 'Kristallnacht' (a reference to the night in November 1938 when Nazis across Germany started their pogrom against European Jews). In the same speech, he
derided American restrictions to free trade and intimated that the World Bank might impose its own measures if the US government did not act to consolidate the American economy. Within a week, the Chinese Ambassador to the US of A was obliged to leave the country with a military escort, ostensibly for her own safety. The next month saw thirty other nations reduce their diplomatic presence in the US in a gesture of solidarity with China.

The World Bank Forecloses

The American economy had by now been in steady decline in world terms for half a century. Foreign exchange conditions were so adverse that few Americans could afford to travel abroad. The dollar had declined about twenty times in value relative to both the Euro and the Kuai since the start of the century. Imports, once stifled by protectionism, were now largely unaffordable, and only the poorer neighbouring countries (notably Cuba) maintained trade. The American populace, however, had experienced a relatively slight decline in living standards and there were three principal reasons for their insulation from the full effects of an economic depression.

The first was that large global businesses, many of which originated in America, had continued to supply the US of A with finished goods. They were paid for by virtue of the second reason, plentiful raw materials . The only resource that had effectively run out was oil, though engineers had provided a partial solution by developing internal combustion engines suitable for methane fuel. Sewage was an important source of the gas, and another was the reclamation of the huge landfills of the late 20th Century. President Alvarez, during a visit to Washington to discuss terms for Mexican aid, described America as being 'ingenious as well as noisome' [6]

The third reason why America avoided economic collapse was foreign loans, which continued to be made in spite of a long-since hopeless national debt. By the late 2050s, a single day's interest on World Bank advances exceeded the net worth of the US Stock Exchange. The historic explanation for continued support under these untenable conditions was fear of world depression, but as the banks' losses mounted the reliance of international trade on America lessened. The cheapness of American minerals could not redress the shifting balance indefinitely, particularly given the rising tide of US exports of manufactured goods of substandard quality. The American government resisted all of the international community's demands, whether for reduced money supply or for non-toxic toys. Throughout it all, the League habitually blamed the US of A's principal creditor, China, for most of their nation's ills. It was no surprise when China led the calls for withdrawal of World Bank support for the American economy.

On the 12th June 2062, the World Bank declared that it would provide no further loans to the US of A until a complex series of parity measures were attained. The world braced itself for an unprecedented slump in global trade.

Rebellion, Famine and Exodus

The Depression of 2062-64 was severe, but throughout most of the world it was not nearly as catastrophic as had been feared. In the US of A itself, though, the most extreme breakdown of civil order in world history was the direct result.

With no access to stable money, the Federal Reserve was obliged to cut the money supply after all. Inflation nonetheless raged, necessitating further cuts, and the outcome was that the general populace was hit hard twice. People saw the value of their savings disastrously eroded, and at the same time their employers were having severe difficulty in finding the means to pay them. Many of these people instinctively mistrusted authority and a high proportion of them possessed a collection of guns.

The wave of violence and the collapse of authority in the police and armed forces left the basic economy dysfunctional. Attempting to work invited personal risk with no prospect of being paid. Before long, even looting became similarly pointless. A shocked and chastened World Bank restored credit in October 2062, but it was too late: there was no longer a system to shore up. In the first six months of 2063, some 15 million refugees crossed into Canada and a further 10 million entered Mexico. The United Nations (which was now running its North American operations from Ottawa following the destruction of its New York headquarters) tried to insert peace-keepers, but were repulsed. Humanitarian food convoys bound for the Mid-West met a similar fate. Even air-drops came under fire from renegade elements of the American military.

By the autumn of 2063, bubonic plague was rife almost from coast to coast. The world watched in impotent horror as America broadcast its own demise, through many hundreds of domestic satellite hook-ups that continued long after the national networks went off the air. Though an accurate death toll will never be known, most historians estimate that between 4 and 6 million Americans died in the five years leading up to the Guantanemo Bay Trials, ie some 1 to 1.5% of the population. Among them was President Lear, the fifty-sixth and last elected President of the United States. Nothing was heard of him after 28th August 2063, the probable date on which the White House was burned.

Dissolution of the United States

At the beginning of December, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Fatima al-Mazal announced her resignation, along with the whole executive of the organisation. The UN is historically considered to have been disbanded at that time, and the temporary institution that replaced it, the Peace Council is likewise considered as the precursor of the World Government.

In spite of its name, the Peace Council was necessarily more robust and expedient than its predecessor. An early priority was the recovery of nuclear warheads that were believed to remain stockpiled in the US, in direct contravention of the Beijing Accord of 2041. The World Army that entered the US of A at the beginning of February 2064 was equipped as an invasion force and its commander, a Briton named General William Howe, acted on orders that reflected such a role.
The United States of America was formally dissolved at a Peace Council meeting in Paris on 2nd April 2064. American consent was given by Dr Hammond Trumble, US Ambassador to Europe and the most senior known representative of the disbanded legislature. The US of A had existed for just under 106,000 days. In the early hours of the following day, the city of San Francisco was destroyed by the most powerful earthquake in history, and some two thousand square miles of the Californian coastal strip vanished under the Pacific Ocean. Although the event had been anticipated for fully a century, a divine influence was so widely attributed that Pope Mary saw fit to dismiss the theory in her Easter message later that same week.

The Battle of Texas

The first aim of the occupation of the United States by the forces of the Peace Council was the restoration of public order. In the north, the campaign went substantially according to plan, though there were isolated conflagrations in its later stages. The violence and crime had largely burned themselves out. Remaining antisocial activity was being perpetrated by a minority that menaced the largely-passive general populace as much as the troops. The force commanded by General Vasily Kazabayev received at first tacit and then active support from the Americans.

The intention in the south was the same, but the reception was entirely different. Organised resistance was widespread. Substantial numbers of Americans were prepared to fight and die in the apparent belief that their actions might somehow repulse what they saw as an invasion.

The advance from the eastern seaboard met with ferocious guerrilla warfare and was eventually halted at the Mississippi. The western force, landing on the ravaged and depopulated Californian coastline, made easier progress up to the northern and western frontiers of Texas. With substantial Peace Council forces in Mexico too, Texas was effectively surrounded. Its population was swollen by displaced people from neighbouring states. Communications infrastructure was substantially intact, allowing the League and other activists to rally resistance.

Howe was bemused by the extraordinary behaviour of his adversaries, but he prepared at first for a siege. The situation changed within a few weeks when it became apparent that nuclear missiles originally stationed in New Mexico were missing, and it was concluded that they had been moved prior to the occupation.

The world was now faced with a dilemma in the form of an unstable regime that might be preparing to use weapons of mass destruction. Opinion was torn between diplomacy and military action, and it soon became apparent that the world's dominant military power was ready to act alone. China's belligerence and assertiveness was not entirely without an ally, though, and the Sino-British invasion force, supported by massive air strikes, swept across Texas in just four days in October 2064.

Howe's diaries show that the likely course of the conflict was recognised in advance, and that this charge across the plains would be the easy part. For a protracted period after it, thousands of insurgents in the cities would continue to inflict suicide attacks. The best hope of a speedy resolution and an early start on America's recovery would follow from their ruthless elimination.

British and Chinese losses in the Battle of Texas were around 4000 and 2000 respectively. American deaths were variously estimated at 60,000 up to a quarter of a million. The weapons deployed by the insurgents, expected to comprise mainly sidearms and light automatic rifles, turned out to include many devices of a sophistication and power that had no place in the hands of private individuals.

The insurgency lasted about two months. Although the British in particular were accused of brutality at the Juarez Tribunal of 2067, the world community had learned lessons at the beginning of the century about the futility of containment when confronted by religious and nationalistic fanaticism. There was in any case a need for a robust crackdown against leaders who had already presided over the deaths of millions of their own people. The purging of Texas was ultimately consensual, and moreover was proved by events to be the right course. As Howe himself said at Juarez "Time and again we were confronted by Americans determined to die. The only question was whether my men were going to die too".

The missiles were never recovered. Most historians now consider that little of the feared and fabled nuclear defences of the US of A ever existed.

America Today

Kobayashi suggests that the final bloodbath in Texas, coupled with the coincidental San Francisco earthquake, ultimately provided a springboard for recovery. The relatively pragmatic and less injured "Yankees" of the north did not dwell on their emasculation, because they were quickly called upon to govern the devastated southwest.

By 2080, a functioning economy was restored and famine and bubonic plague were more or less eradicated. Death rates stabilised at the levels of a century before, so that around 10% of Americans born in 2100 will live beyond a hundred, compared with a world norm of 50%. The first two hundred-year old American is almost certainly alive today, but the rest of the world will achieve the mark fully a century sooner.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that America has dealt with the consequences of its decline and fall by reverting to its isolationist habits. Many Americans today refuse to believe that most other countries in the world are decisively better off. The World Government's attempts to prevent the resettlement of radioactively-contaminated tracts of Texas were abandoned because people insisted on living there. It can be argued that American diet is poor by choice, and obesity is certainly pandemic. It is difficult to characterise the re-emergence of personal transport powered by the internal combustion engine as anything but perverse.

The world as a whole has been chastened by the events of the 21st Century, but is better for it. The world did not learn so effectively from wars, genocide and stand-offs of the 20th. The establishment of a World Government is a stabilising and civilising development and would probably have been impossible as long as the US of A retained influence. In today's world, for the first time in history, the most successful nations are the most co-operative ones.

References

1. '2020 and Beyond: A History of World Politics in the Modern Age', S Kobayashi

2. 'The Last Fanatics', Dr R Williams Jr

3. 'You Wouldn't Dare: America's Fatal Error in the 21st Century', M T Nbebe

4. 'Ideas Above His Station: the Life, Death and Legacy of Tony Blair', The Rt Hon W V E Cholmondley-Ffoulkes

5. 'The Battle of Texas', Gen. W Howe

6. 'I'm Sorry, Jodan. I Don't Know What Came Over Me', A. Damned-Seal

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