History Rhymes - From Alexander to America
1. The Rise of Macedon
Alexander the Great took a small Balkan kingdom and turned it into the largest empire the world had yet seen.
In little more than a decade, his armies swept through Persia, Egypt, and deep into Asia.
It was dazzling... but fragile - built on one man’s genius, charisma, and willpower.
2. The Fall of Macedon
Alexander died suddenly in 323 BC.
With no strong institutions to hold his empire together, his generals (the Diadochi) carved up the empire.
What was unity became patchwork: Macedonia, Egypt, Seleucid Asia, each fighting for supremacy.
The legacy was cultural, not political: Hellenistic civilisation spread, but the empire itself shattered.
3. The Rise of America
From 1945, the United States inherited global leadership.
Its reach was unmatched: military bases worldwide, the dollar as reserve currency, technology dominance and culture as soft power.
After 1991, America enjoyed its “unipolar moment”, the sole and unrivaled superpower, right through to the serious rise of China in from about 2017.
4. The Strains of Empire
Overreach followed: endless wars in the Middle East for control of the energy supply, twin spiralling debts, a semi delusional ideology of exceptionalism and a belief that one country could police the globe.
But like Macedon, the empire stretched further than its base could sustain.
The façade of invincibility cracked.
5. The Fragmentation Today
Under Biden and Trump, America is no longer a unifying empire - unless you say that it is unifying the global South against itself. It is faltering.
Retreat from Europe, repositioning out to the second island ring in East Asia, and chaos in West Asia... all point to withdrawal.
Allies, once loyal clients, are hedging their bets: Europe submits and clings to America’s coattails, Israel defies (as usual), Asia balances between Washington and Beijing.
What remains looks like Alexander’s world after his death — a multi-polar patchwork of rival powers.
6. The Rhyme of History
One-man dependency: Alexander then, is this what Trump is trying to create now?
Overstretch: the usual disease of empire.
Fragmentation: Alexander’s generals then, America’s vassal states / the EU and Britain today.
Legacy: Western civilisation and influence may remain for 500 more years, but the empire itself is disintegrating.
Conclusion
“History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes”. (Supposedly Mark Twain.)
Alexander’s empire rose dazzlingly fast and collapsed just as suddenly.
The American empire, handed over by Britain after the last world war, and extended in the typically excessive pride of emperors, is now showing its age in the same patterns of exhaustion and fracture.
How the wheel turns, break up from within, ordinary people finally pushing back against their elites.
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