Day Of Empire

By Phar Kim Beng
Founder/Chair
Strategic Pan Indo-Pacific Arena
Strategicpipa.com
Twitter: @indo_pan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Strategicpipa

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Amy Chua is one of the most talented political scientists at Yale University. But her books, such as the “World on Fire” written in 2003, tend to be quite alarmist . In that book, she affirmed that sheer globalization and the further promotion of freedom and democracy are bound to foster ethnic-galvanization, where groups that cannot gain from all the benefits of globalization, will invariably become defensive, ultimately, offensive.

Very soon, they will graduate from picket lines to political warfare and sabotage. To be sure, there is a compelling logic to Amy Chua’s narrative in “The World on Fire”, regardless of what the critics may say.

Ethnic groups that have been left out by the process of globalization do unite, as witnessed in Latin America, where within the spate of ten years, various indigenous leaders in Valenzuela, Bolivia, and Peru all popped up.

In “Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Prominence and Why They Fall” Amy Chua again adopted a rather simple approach: That it was the lack of multicultural elements and mutual tolerance that tore the “hyperpowers” to shreds, this time from within.

The issue is, Amy Chua has put all the elements of the fall or blame on the human agency. Yet, she has placed a low threshold of tolerance and diversity, to systemic/constitutional failure. If “hyperpowers” do fail, indeed, at the altar of global conquest, perhaps it is fairer to say they fail at the feet of bad legal planning first.

In “Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Prominence and Why They Fall” Amy Chua again adopted a rather simple approach: That it was the lack of multicultural elements and mutual tolerance that tore the “hyperpowers” to shreds, this time from within. The issue is, Amy Chua has put all the elements of the fall on the human agency alone.

Yet, a low threshold of tolerance and diversity, is both a human problem, and a systemic/constitutional failure. If “hyperpowers” do fail, they first fail at the feet of bad legal and constitutional planning .

Without a legal system to protect the rights of all and sundry, even an empire like the United States cannot maintain its preeminence forever. The presidency of Donald Trump, for example, has been a blight on the United States without a shrewd of a doubt.

For a union or federation of different states to be strong, any governing entity must embrace and celebrate the importance of diversity first.

Amy Chua’s book is thus a celebration of “unity in diversity”. Without unity, all powers will collapse, as it struggles perennially to bring the different groups together. Without a legal system to protect the rights of all, even an empire like the United States cannot maintain its preeminence forever. All ethnic groups are inclined to disbelieve in one another another, creating a society that is perennially unfair and unstable.