This pattern war debts, reserve loss, deficits, devaluation, creditor dependence, and asset liquidation is not uniquely British. It is imperial mathematics. Rome followed it over centuries; Britain compressed it into decades. The United States now shows early but unmistakable signs of the same trajectory.
America was consciously founded as a New Rome. The Founders studied Roman history obsessively, borrowing its republican ideals, symbols, architecture, and warnings. The Capitol, the eagle, Latin mottos, and the Senate were not aesthetic choices but ideological ones. America saw itself as Rome reborn wiser, restrained, immune to imperial decay. Yet Rome itself believed the same thing.
Like Rome and Britain before it, America’s strength rested on a broad middle class, a credible currency, and global financial privilege. Today, all three are under strain. Federal debt stands around $38.4–38.5 trillion, with debt-to-GDP near 124 percent. Interest payments approach $1 trillion annually, rivalling defence spending. Since abandoning gold peg in 1971, the dollar has lost roughly 86 percent of its purchasing power. The dollar’s reserve share, while still dominant, has declined to around 57–58 percent as alternatives slowly emerge.