The American empire will fall--but after the Russian and Chinese empires.
Capitalism saws off the tree branch upon which it sits--as EJ Hobsbawm once wrote--but is more resilient than you think. Who won the 20th century? Lenin or JMKeynes?
The compare-contrast grid herein shows the ingredients of viable empire:
Only the US has all of them: continental land mass, large population, energy and commodity independence, two oceans for defense, friendly neighbors, deep and liquid financial markets, rule of law (vs rule by law), exported soft power through an easy to learn language with an alphabet, tech and entertainment, success at importing talent. China and Russia have almost none of these--especially the last parts.
The Dutch invented the modern world, the bond market and the fiscal-military state, which the English copied and the Americans copied the copy. Since then upstart informal maritime empires defeat legacy land-based empires like Russia and China.
