Sunset on United States Power?
by Mike James
In the history of the world, one thing that is inevitable is that all great powers will decline. Egypt, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, and, most recently, the Soviet Union. Is the United States next?
A new study by Rand (RAND Corporation is an American nonprofit global policy think tank), commissioned by the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment and published in May 2024, makes some startling admissions. The Rand study, titled "The Sources of Renewed National Dynamism," looks at what has led to "the relative decline in U.S. standing."
The opening chapter of the study explains America's problem bluntly: "Its competitive position is threatened both from within (in terms of slowing productivity growth, an aging population, a polarized political system, and an increasingly corrupted information environment) and outside (in terms of a rising direct challenge from China and declining deference to U.S. power from dozens of developing nations)."
The decline is "accelerating," warns the study. "The essential problem is seen in starkly different terms by different segments of society and groups of political leaders." Both the right and left have a narrative of decline, but they are in extreme disagreement on what to do about it. Disunity is not a good remedy for solving problems.
The study goes on to warn that if we remain disunited, we may spin into a downward spiral. Quoting from the study: "Recovery from significant long-term national decline is rare and difficult to detect in the historical record." Think ofexamples like Rome, Hapsburg Spain, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Soviet Union. "When great powers have slide from a position of preeminence or leadership because of domestic factors, they seldom reversed this trend."
Listen to the triggers the study said causes national decline and tell me if you don't see that in the good ole U.S.A. today. "Addiction to luxury and decadence," "failure to keep pace with…technological demands," "ossified" bureaucracy, "loss of civic virtue," "military overstretch," "self-interested and warring elites," "unsustainable environmental practices."Sounds familiar, does it not?
Could this have anything to do with the Bible? For years, the Church of God has spoken about similarities between the United States and ancient Israel. Israel was God's chosen nation (Deuteronomy 7:7-9). The United States (U.S.) is the most populous Christian nation in the world. Israel was to be an example for the world of what the true God was all about (Deuteronomy 4:6). The U.S. has been the most evangelical nation in the world, supplying the world with more missionaries and Bibles than anyone else. Israel fell because they fell away from their God. The U.S. is moving away from what God stands for. Could the U.S. fall because we are a modern type of Israel?
Jeremiah 30 is an interesting prophetic chapter. It seems to be implying (Jeremiah 30:3) a future captivity of the people of Israel and Judah. You must remember that at the time Jeremiah was writing, Israel had already gone into Assyrian captivity, and Judah was about to fall to the Babylonians. Verses 7-9 appear to be talking about the last days before the Second Coming. So, in other words, right at the time before Jesus returns a future Israel and Judah will be in captivity again. Who is Israel and Judah at the end time? If the nation of Israel today (made up primarily of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin) is Judah, where is Israel today?
Also note Jeremiah 31:1-14. This is describing a regathering of Israel (Jeremiah 31:7-10). Once again, Israel has already gone into captivity when Jeremiah addresses this. Israel has never yet been regathered as a nation, some would argue. This is describing a time that precedes the Millennium. Ezekiel 34 also addresses the regathering of Israel in the future. Is there an Israel out there today?
Well, I don't have time to get into all of that in a short blog, but the Church of God has speculated over the years that the United States and the United Kingdom could be Israel in type today. We have seen the United Kingdom fall from the most expansive Kingdom ever on earth to a shell of that today. Is the United States about to suffer the same fate? The future will reveal who Israel and Judah are in the end times.
Sources: "Is the Sun Slowly Setting on U.S. Power?" by David Ignatius, The Washington Post, April 28, 2024
"The Sources of Renewed National Dynamism," by Michael J. Mazarr, Tim Sweijs and Daniel Tapia, RAND Corporation, 30 April 2024, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2611-3.html