> is it really "late stage"? it could be just the beginning?! that is possible, nobody knows for sure. these things tend to happen slowly for a long time, then all at once. look at all the modern european empires that fell. the usa is blessed with the best geography in the world which helps it a lot.   > not that the u.s. has ever really been an empire maybe not in name, but in practice it has operated much the same way. multicultural and expansionist. the us is hard to define, for one it's always difficult to characterize the system you yourself live in, because you've been fed propaganda your whole life and can't form an objective opinion. to me, the us has aspects of many previous political entities, the most commonly made reference is rome, to which there are similarities but we have not yet totally done away with the "senate". i see echoes of the venetian system, where the richest merchants chose the doge and would depose him if he didn't carry out their will, i think there similarities with how our presidential system operates in reality with the party system. also the polish-lithuanian commonwealth, which was another multicultural entity with a somewhat weak king who was controlled by his nobles and like us wide license was given to jews to exploit the commoners. and of course our maritime aspects strongly resemble the british empire and it's rule through local intermediaries strategy, if it isn't an outright direct successor of it.
United States