It’s no accident that the age of empires, and of imperialism, is over. Vladimir Putin is being taught that lesson in Ukraine after failing to have learned it in Chechnya. If his ideological comrade, President-elect Donald Trump, tries to enact his recent imperial musings, he will be taught that lesson in Greenland, Panama, Mexico, Canada and elsewhere.

Empires are costly and inefficient. Imperialism is costly and counterproductive. Both combine to generate the very forces that eventually bring about imperial downfall.

Empires are overly centralized political systems that prove to be ever-more inefficient with every expansionist step. The tribute that flows from the periphery to the center creates the illusion of greatness, but the cost of maintaining an ever-expanding bureaucracy — progressively prone to pursue its own interests by funneling incorrect information to the center — eventually exceeds whatever economic benefits empire brings.

Over-centralization thereby leads to poor decision-making and, thus, imperial decay — or the loosening of ties between center and periphery, a development that promotes nationalism and national liberation movements in the colonies.

Imperialism, meanwhile, is expensive and increasingly ineffective. Armies cost money. Initially, seized territories may help cover the costs, but the more the empire expands, the greater the costs of the military and the bureaucracy and the smaller the dividends from continued expansion. Of particular note is the fact that imperialism encourages local nationalisms and national-liberation struggles on the one hand and leads potential targets of imperialism to band together to resist — a move........

© The Hill