America's Expiration Date

The Fall of Empires and Superpowers . . . and the Future of the United States

Cal Thomas

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780310357544
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria politica

A warning and a wake-up call to learn history so we are not doomed to repeat it. A must-read for anyone who longs for a promising future for our great nation.

What is wrong with America today? Is it possible that America could crumble and our democracy fail?

Questions like these plague Americans and cause us to be anxious about the future of the "land that we love." Individuals may come to different conclusions, but there seems to be a common thread - the deep-seated feeling that we need to improve our country. Our culture is increasingly immoral, the family structure is threatened from all sides, and government programs consistently overreach, creating massive debt.

In this powerful and prophetic book, nationally syndicated columnist and trusted political commentator Cal Thomas offers a diagnosis of what exactly is wrong with the United States by drawing parallels to once-great empires and nations that declined into oblivion. Citing the historically proven 250-year pattern of how superpowers rise and fall, he predicts that America's expiration date is just around the corner and shows us how to escape their fate.

Through biblical insights and hard-hitting truth, he reminds us that real change comes when America looks to God instead of Washington. Scripture, rather than politics, is the GPS he uses to point readers to the right road - a road of hope, life, and change. Because, he says, if we're willing to seek God first, learn from history, and make changes at the individual and community level, we can not only survive, but thrive, again.

This powerful, timely, and much-needed perspective is a must-read for anyone who longs for a promising future for our great nation.

CHAPTER 1

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE:

Today a Shell of Its Great Past

THERE CAN NEVER BE PEACE BETWEEN NATIONS UNTIL IT IS FIRST KNOWN THAT TRUE PEACE IS WITHIN THE SOULS OF MEN.

—Persian proverb

We begin our journey by exploring the rise and fall of the Persian Empire, which at the time was the largest the world had seen, but today all that’s left is what we call Iran—hardly the empire it once was when formed in 550 BCE by King Astyages of Media.

Centered in what is modern-day Iran, Persia evolved from a series of imperial dynasties, not unlike many other empires. Cyrus the Great, who is mentioned by name or alluded to more than thirty times in the Bible, is regarded as the patron and deliverer of the Jewish people. He was the pagan monarch under whom the Babylonian captivity ended. According to Scripture, Cyrus was told by God to issue a decree to rebuild the Second Temple in Jerusalem and allow Jews who wished to return to their ancient land to do so. King Cyrus demonstrated his commitment to the project by sending back with the Jews the sacred vessels, which had been removed from the First Temple, along with a large sum of money to pay for building materials. He was today’s Home Depot in reverse!¹

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CAMEO: Xerxes I

If one needs an example from history of what harm military overextension and grandiose ideas can do to a nation, Xerxes I of Persia is a great one.

It could be argued, as many have, that most wars are unnecessary. Some wars are fought because the very survival of a nation is at risk. France and England declaring war against Nazi Germany after they were attacked is a good example of this. Other wars may be fought over a national interest that is not vital, like pride. The Persian invasions of Greece were launched not to protect a vital interest but ultimately because of pride. The conflict lasted on and off for nearly fifty years, between 499 and 449 BCE.

The Persian invasions of Greece were triggered in part by Athenian support for the rebellion launched by the cities of Ionia against Persia. While the rebellion was initially successful, a combined Persian army and naval force, once mobilized, was able to subjugate the cities once again. After the cities of Ionia were back under Persian control, Xerxes’ father, Darius, attempted to invade Athens. Why? Greece had no great wealth or resources to claim at this time. The answer is because the Athenians had sent aid to help the uprising against Persia. Wounded pride seems to have been partially at fault. Darius was defeated at the famous Battle of Marathon, and while the Persian Empire could easily absorb such losses, its pride was undoubtedly wounded.

Xerxes was determined to avenge his father’s defeat. He was like a bully on a playground. If someone weak stands up to the bully and manages to embarrass him, the bully must respond forcefully to maintain his position of dominance, even if it costs him more than the loss of pride he has already suffered. Xerxes launched a massive land and sea invasion of Greece and was defeated, losing most of his forces at the legendary battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale.

While the empire was as strong as ever, resistance by the Greeks managed to overcome what for them must have seemed like impossible odds. As noted by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The Greek triumph ensured the survival of Greek culture and political structures long after the demise of the Persian empire.”*²

The Persian Empire was able for a time to absorb the loss of a vast army and naval fleet, but there had been no existential threat to Persia, and so the calculation Xerxes I made was costly to his kingdom and his people.

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The initial religion of Persia was Zoroastrianism—one of the world’s oldest religions, predating Islam. In 651 CE, Arabs conquered Persia and established an even larger Islamic caliphate. Subsequent rulers established the Shia branch of Islam as the dominant religion. Shia Islam endures today under the theocratic government in Tehran. It was imposed in a 1979 coup led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The nation is now called the Islamic Republic of Iran.

What I find fascinating about Persia is the number of concepts it practiced that are still reflected in modern cultures. Persia was basically a collection of nomads and thus did not have a central government, courts, a police force, or even laws. What kept them from falling into a type of anarchy was a code of honor that eventually morphed into a religion. The man behind this was named Zoroaster. He lived around 1000 BCE and introduced the concept of a singular god, the creator whom he identified as Ahura Mazda, bringer of asha—light, order, truth, the law or logic by which the world was structured. Not everyone in Persia at the time practiced Zoroastrianism, but such was its influence that the entire culture was shaped by it and embraced its ethics.³

Imagine a faith so influential that even those who do not practice it are shaped by it. That was once the case in America, where what some refer to as a Judeo-Christian ethic prevailed, but no longer. What would it take for our faith to regain that kind of influence?

A successor to Cyrus (by way of intrigue and murder) was Darius I. He too is mentioned in the Bible, in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, Haggai, and Zechariah. Darius was a man of influence and consequence in the ancient world and in the biblical narrative regarding the history of the Israelites. The empire established by Cyrus and Darius lasted roughly two hundred years but eventually succumbed to decadence and became a victim of the very multiculturalism it embraced, which included an army with troops who spoke different languages and were trained and equipped according to their unique traditions. This has obvious modern implications, because no nation can retain its character if it forgets what it stands for and allows too many people into the country while failing to assimilate them. A military coup in 401 BCE by Cyrus the Younger and some associates against his brother, Artaxerxes (who is also mentioned several times in the Bible, in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah), led to the eventual conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great in 334 BCE.

THE AGE OF PIONEERS

Not all empires followed the exact same path from their beginning to their eventual decline. Some have a clearly defined age of pioneers during which brave men and women forged new lives for themselves in new lands or developed new technology and stratagems that allowed them to take their civilizations to the next level. Persia is not quite like this. The Persian Empire was born in rebellion. The Persians already possessed a distinct identity and culture. What they desired was self-determination, freedom from the dominant power of the day. This, in a sense, was their pioneer period.

Ancient Persia occupied the same territory as modern-day Iran. Iranians still sometimes refer to themselves as Persians. In the early 500s BCE, Persia was ruled by the Medes. The Persians were vassals to the Median kings, and there is some evidence that Persians rebelled on more than one occasion. One of these rebellions was led by Cyrus II, a descendant of the perhaps mythical Achaemenes. Cyrus II (later known as Cyrus the Great) was successful in defeating the Medes in battle and drawing many previous Median vassals to his service. In a very short time, Cyrus the Great replaced a Median empire with a Persian one. This empire is sometimes known as the Achaemenid Empire, named after its supposed progenitor.

THE AGE OF CONQUESTS

The Persian Empire entered its age of conquests as Cyrus the Great immediately looked to expand his new empire. Initially, he bypassed the Babylonian Empire and struck the empire of Lydia, which was ruled by a man named Croesus. Croesus had attacked the Persian city of Pteria after consulting with the Delphic Oracle in Greece. Herodotus records in book 1 of his Histories, a record of the Greco-Persian Wars, that the oracle informed Croesus that if he went to war with Persia, a great empire would be destroyed. As with the ancient Israelites, who ignored biblical prophets foretelling coming disasters if God was disobeyed, Croesus misunderstood one of several oracles he consulted, hearing only what he wanted to hear. He also ignored the advice of a top adviser not to go to war, resulting in the empire’s destruction. Cyrus had his generals conquer Asia Minor after the conquest of Lydia, resulting in what is now modern Turkey falling under his control.

Soon after the conquest of Lydia, Cyrus the Great attacked Babylon, fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy regarding the fall of the Babylonian Empire (Isaiah 13). Babylon quickly fell and without resistance from the Babylonian armies, Cyrus ruled all of what is modern-day Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Israel, and Armenia.

Cyrus had put together his own version of a union, made up of many tribes. He also engaged in a kind of religious pluralism and tolerance that is absent today in modern Iran and in other parts of the Arab and Muslim world. According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, “Cyrus, by contrast, saw cooperation as a strength, particularly when it came to securing the main prize: Babylon.

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The Military

The United States’ military is the most powerful and sophisticated on earth. It is composed of some of the bravest and most selfless people in our country. Virtually all members join either because they love America to defend her against her enemies or to get help with training and an education for when they return to civilian life—or both.

Both motives are perfectly fine. Members of the US military are under the authority of civilians who are elected by themselves and their fellow citizens. Unfortunately, those leaders do not always use the military to its, or the nation’s, best advantage.

Some examples: George W. Bush used the military to topple Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and obliterate members of his Baath political party, creating a vacuum which Iran and the Taliban were eager to fill. That produced other problems, and not only in Iraq, which went through a period of instability as Islamic rivals battled each other for political power. At the end of 2018, the country seemed more stable, but neighboring Iran continues as the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism, and the region, whose borders were created arbitrarily by a small group of men led by Winston Churchill following World War II, remains in turmoil.

Then there is Afghanistan, the site of America’s longest war. While al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization behind the September 11, 2001, attack on America, seems decimated, its close ally, the Taliban, continues to surface from time to time, requiring additional military attention. Afghanistan is tribal and unfamiliar with the democratic processes of the West. Islam is a strong motivator, and many in the increasingly secular-progressive West don’t seem to grasp the influence of the religion on its political worldview.

Another example is Rwanda. Bill Clinton said not sending the military to that African country to stop the genocide was a mistake he still regrets. Perhaps, but it’s difficult to know whether US forces might have done more than temporarily suspend the violence without a permanent presence in the country, especially since white Westerners might have been viewed negatively by the warring tribal factions. An American force might have united the tribes against the invaders. And then there would have been the overwhelming cost and a further increase to the growing national debt.

When Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of Great Britain, she reportedly said that Westerners make a mistake when they transpose their morality on others who don’t share it. This was George W. Bush’s big mistake. Bush liked to say that freedom beats in every human heart. Unfortunately, many in the world have a different view of freedom than we do.

We can’t use our military to impose a Western-style democracy on others. Each time this has been tried, it has failed. What about Germany and Japan, you might ask? These were nations that had totalitarianism imposed on their people and when free of those dictators and their ideology reverted to a more democratic system. Big difference.

We need to constantly review not just the purpose of our military but our role in the world. President Trump properly demanded that nations which have benefited from our defense umbrella since World War II start paying more of their share of the bill. Some have, and it gives them skin in the game.

We can’t solve the problems of the world, so each challenge must be met individually. The blood and lives of our brave men and women (not to mention our tax dollars) should be committed only when the interests of the United States are at risk. There might be some exceptions, but that should be the rule.

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Rather than trying to take the world’s greatest city by force, Cyrus fought a propaganda campaign to exploit the unpopularity of its king, Nabonidus. Babylon’s traditions would be safer with Cyrus, was the message.”⁴ The gates were opened, and palm fronds were laid before Cyrus as he entered the city, an activity that presaged another famous entry, on what we call Palm Sunday.

Cyrus implemented a policy of multiculturalism. While his conquests brought people from a variety of cultures and backgrounds, he allowed them to maintain their separate identities. As long as they paid tribute to him as their...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: If the End Were Near, What Would You Do?
• 1. The Persian Empire: Today a Shell of Its Great Past
• 2. The Roman Empires: Yes, It Really Burned
• 3. The Byzantine Empire: Officially Christian
• 4. The Arab Empire: Muhammad’s Followers
• 5. The Spanish Empire: How the Mighty Doth Fall
• 6. The Ottoman Empire: Winners and Losers
• 7. The British Empire: Where the Sun Never Sets
• 8. The Russian Empire: From Orthodoxy to Communism
• 9. The United States: 1776–?
• Appendix 1: Bonus Cameos
• Appendix 2: A Prophet Ignored
• Appendix 3: The Prophet’s Second Warning
• Notes