The United States of America as Rome

The Romans did not colonise the conquered territories in the modern sense; they posted their garrisons and extracted tributes. The Roman Empire was not a state, but the sphere of extension of Roman power, with the Roman citizens enjoying superior status to the local populations. Read: the network of American military bases all over the world, business opportunities for the US multinationals, superior status of Americans in any particular country.

The English are to the Americans as the Greeks were to the Romans: a race whose own empire belongs to the bygone age, looking up to the far more powerful newcomers with a mixture of awe, envy, and contempt, the last arising from the a cultural superiority complex.

What about the Soviet Union? Why, of course, it played the role of Carthage, complete with its rival but less extensive empire and its human sacrifice (both real and as embellished by its enemy's scribes). The rollback of Communism? "Carthage must be destroyed."

Given that the American president is the effective ruler of the world - foreign policy being the most extensive decision-making arena of the office - citizens of other countries should be allowed to cast votes in the US presidential election. An outrageous idea from the US citizens point of view - analogously, Rome refused to grant Roman citizenship to its Latin allies, leading to the Social War/Marsic War.

However, we are anyway at the period where the Republic is giving way to the Empire proper; this is signified by the rise of the dynastic presidential contenders (both the Bushes and the Clintons) and most especially by Bush's non-election in 2000.

Philip K. Dick was right.

The Empire never ended.

P. S. Islamic terror warriors as the barbarian invaders? (Les Invasions barbares, well of course.) China as the future Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, at once the descendant of the destroyers of Rome and an inheritor of some of its legacy?

Endless possibilities. Mind boggles.