"The 'Empire Killer' Strikes Again"
by Nick Giambruno
"One of the most potent and underappreciated forces responsible for the downfall of the most powerful empires throughout history has been debt. While military defeats, political upheavals, and external invasions often dominate historical accounts of the fall of great powers, excessive debt - the "Empire Killer" - has quietly but relentlessly eroded the foundations of empires across the centuries.
From Rome to the Soviet Union, the over-extension of resources, poor financial management, and the inability to service massive debts have led to economic collapse, social unrest, and, ultimately, the demise of these once-mighty empires. Understanding how debt has played a role in the fall of these empires gives us insight into the role it could play in the collapse of the US Empire. Here is a summary of some prominent historical examples of this clear pattern.
The Roman Empire: One of the most iconic examples of debt’s destructive force is the Roman Empire. At its height, Rome was the center of the known world, controlling vast territories, including much of Europe, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East. Maintaining a vast empire required immense financial resources. The Roman government needed to fund its sprawling military, build infrastructure such as roads and aqueducts, and support the grandeur of its capital city.
Emperors financed the resulting debt by debasing the currency - reducing the silver content in Roman coins. However, this led to rampant price increases and economic instability. The more the Roman government tried to print its way out of debt, the worse the problem became. As debt and inflation strangled the Roman economy, the empire struggled to pay its soldiers, undermining military morale and effectiveness.
Weakened by internal financial collapse, Rome became vulnerable to external threats. The combined weight of financial mismanagement, social unrest, and military decline led to the empire’s collapse.
The Spanish Empire: In the 16th century, the Spanish Empire was a global superpower. The discovery of the New World brought an influx of gold and silver, filling the Spanish government’s coffers beyond imagination. However, this newfound wealth bred complacency and extravagance. The Spanish monarchy became embroiled in costly wars across Europe - including the Eighty Years’ War with the Dutch and conflicts with France and England - and indulged in lavish expenditures without regard for fiscal sustainability.
Spain borrowed heavily from European bankers to finance its ambitions, accruing enormous debts. At first, the influx of colonial wealth allowed Spain to service its debts, but as wars dragged on, the costs began to outstrip the income from the New World. Spain’s creditworthiness diminished as the debts mounted, and the economic decline became irreversible. The inevitable consequence was a series of bankruptcies in 1557, 1575, and 1596. Each bankruptcy weakened Spain’s creditworthiness, making it more difficult to borrow money on favorable terms. The once-dominant empire lost its influence, illustrating how an abundance of wealth, when mismanaged and coupled with excessive debt, can precipitate a rapid descent from power.
The French Monarchy: The fall of the French monarchy in the late 18th century provides another stark example of how debt can destabilize a powerful country. France’s involvement in costly wars, such as the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution, strained the country’s finances. Meanwhile, the extravagant lifestyle of the French court, epitomized by King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, drained the treasury further. France was deeply in debt, and the government struggled to service its loans.
By the late 1780s, the French government was spending more on interest payments than its military. The French monarchy imposed heavy taxes on commoners to pay the cost of its debts, while the nobility and clergy were largely exempt. It led to widespread anger among the population, fueling social unrest. In 1789, the situation reached a tipping point, igniting the French Revolution.
When empires reach the late stages of the debt cycle, they don’t regain discipline - they reset the system. Today’s exploding debt, rising interest costs, and currency debasement point to the same outcome: a more centralized, digital reset that protects government solvency while quietly transferring wealth from the unprepared to those who act early.
The Qing Dynasty: The Qing Dynasty was the last imperial dynasty of China. It was a leading world economic power, but spending and foreign borrowing in the 19th century was a significant factor in its decline. The Qing Dynasty faced enormous financial strain due to prolonged conflicts, including the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, and the Boxer Rebellion. These wars forced the Qing Dynasty to borrow heavily from foreign lenders. The Qing government increased taxes on peasants and small landholders to manage its debt. The tax burden, widespread corruption, and inefficiency in the imperial bureaucracy led to social discontent and weakened the central authority’s control over the provinces. Debt was a critical factor that exacerbated the already unstable political and social situation in the late Qing Dynasty.
The British Empire: The sun never set on the British Empire at the height of its power. However, the two World Wars strained the empire’s resources beyond its limits. The cost of fighting in WW1 and WW2 left Britain deeply in debt, particularly to the US. The financial strain of debt made maintaining control over its vast territories impossible, and Britain’s role as a world superpower diminished. The pound ceased being the world’s leading reserve currency.
How Debt Destroys Empires: A Familiar Pattern: The typical pattern in these examples of collapsing empires (and numerous others I didn’t have time to mention) is:
Stage #1: Empires achieve success and become overconfident.
Stage #2: Overconfidence leads to extravagant spending on luxuries and wars.
Stage #3: Empires finance this lavish spending by going into debt.
Stage #4: The debt grows to an unsustainable level and creates a crushing burden.
Stage #5: Empires finance the debt through taxation and currency debasement.
Stage #6: The populace bears the brunt of debt repayment as empires raise taxes and debase the currency - to the maximum extent - until it causes internal instability.
Stage #7: Empires cannot finance their militaries because of their debt burden. This is usually the tipping point.
Stage #8: Underfunded militaries plus internal instability make empires vulnerable to foreign invasion, domestic revolution, civil war, and other existential dangers.
Stage #9: The empire collapses.
The US federal government has the biggest debt in the history of the world. And it’s continuing to grow at a rapid, unstoppable pace. While the US government can extend the charade of solvency longer than any other entity on the planet, not even the most powerful empires in human history can do so forever, particularly when they start to struggle to pay the interest costs. The situation has reached a tipping point. That’s because the federal debt’s annualized interest cost exceeded the defense budget for the first time last year. It’s on track to exceed Social Security and become the BIGGEST item in the federal budget.
As a result, the US Empire is somewhere between Stage #6 and #7 in the empire collapse pattern I described above. History rarely repeats in perfect detail - but it does rhyme, and the rhyme is getting louder. When an empire hits the late stages of the debt cycle, the real damage doesn’t arrive with a headline or a single crash. It shows up in the quiet erosion of purchasing power, the creeping "emergency" policies, and the accelerating need to debase currency just to keep the machine running.
If the US really is drifting from Stage #6 toward Stage #7, then this isn’t just an abstract history lesson - it’s a live setup. And the people who come through periods like this intact are usually the ones who recognize the pattern early and position themselves before the crowd is forced to react."
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"National Debt Clock"
Real time: - https://www.usdebtclock.org/
