Great Powers Are Rotting From Within

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a great power in possession of a great fortune must be in want of a collapse…or at least I think that’s what Jane Austen said. 

The truth is both as simple and far more complicated, however. For decades, historians and international relations scholars have debated the causes behind the rise and fall of great powers. From the ancient Maya to the more recent Great British Empire, large societies with wealth and power are inevitable victims of their own ambition. The theory of imperial overreach describes the point where a great power stretches itself beyond its military and economic capabilities. Most often, this happens through their foreign policy. 

A powerful nation will set lofty foreign and military goals which outpace its economic productivity, resulting in an erosion of state power. In most recent memory, we can see this happening within the Spanish and British Empires. When a nation extends its military reach beyond what its domestic economic engine can reasonably sustain, the structural integrity of the nation begins to warp under the burden. This further results in corruption within the political systems and internal instability. The grand ambition on the global stage masks the quiet, steady decay taking place back home. It is this internal instability which rots a great power from within.

According to political scientist Syed Umair Jalal, this aspect of social disorder is a decisive factor which destroys sovereign authority in the long term. Before an empire succumbs to an outside force or an economic shock, it almost always hollows itself out from within. The disorder occurs when small oligarchies concentrate the wealth (and therefore power) of a nation while fuelling corruption and economic inequality amongst the general population. When wealth extraction becomes the primary goal of a ruling elite, the foundational health of the broader public is completely sacrificed. The citizens grow unhealthier, the land grows degraded, and the quality of decision-making by those in power plummets. 

Historically, the response of elites to such discontent is to violently reassert dominance, triggering rebellion and civil disorder in the process. As popular discontent rises, those at the top panic and double down on force rather than addressing the root causes of the inequality. The Great British Empire from the 18th through early 20th century was preoccupied by rapid industrialisation and urbanisation – a process which sparked domestic labour unrest and strikes. The rapid speed of social shift placed overwhelming strain on traditional social structures. At the same time, British colonies organised against the empire demanding increased political representation. 

As we can see from these once-great empires, dissatisfaction on the grassroots level fuels the downfall of societies through division and uprisings. When the populace loses faith in the fairness of the system, the social order begins to unravel rapidly. Unfortunately for modern-day great powers, empirical research suggests that once the decline is perceived, reversal of the process grows exponentially further out of reach. Once the momentum of imperial decline takes hold, it creates a feedback loop that becomes nearly impossible for state institutions to interrupt.

The Rot Begins at Home

Social decay, characterised by the loss of citizens’ trust in government, and its subsequent impacts require a multi-layered approach. As we can see, a state is not made of solely military and economic might. An empire can project power across continents, yet remain profoundly fragile at its core if its domestic foundation is cracked. The will of the people and their connection to a national identity is a cornerstone that unites a society. Without a unifying narrative, a population becomes little more than a collection of competing factions. If this connection is severed, and the collective sense of purpose dies, the state begins to erode from the inside out.

This erosion is largely due to shifts in the ‘domestic mindset’. The subjective psychological state of the citizens turns out to be just as critical as objective measures like GDP or military firepower. The population no longer sees their government, even the nation as a whole, as being representative of the shared identity. When local institutions disintegrate and traditional community structures are disrupted, individuals lose their anchoring mechanisms. As corruption mounts, inequality becomes standard practice, division flourishes, and people adopt a sense of nihilism.

This pervasive nihilism distorts how citizens view their obligations to the broader community. When citizens stop believing that the system serves them or has a future, their focus shifts away from long-term community growth and degrades into individual, short-term survival. Why invest in the long-term health of a society if you believe that society is fundamentally broken and spiralling toward collapse?

The American Case

This cycle of great power overstretch is repeating itself in the United States of America. Ideological divergences in recent decades have driven American society to extreme political and social polarisation reminiscent of the Spanish and British Empires. The shared national identity that once bound the citizenry together has fractured into competing ideological visions. In the past, Republicans and Democrats have been able to find some common ground on shared concerns and come to an amicable arrangement. Today, party loyalty and ideological division have become so deep that Congress routinely struggles to pass bipartisan bills or federal budgets, leaving millions of workers without payment for prolonged periods of time. Governance breaks down when political parties treat compromise as a betrayal of core identity. 

This type of polarisation within the government manifests itself into the general public. According to one report by the University of Chicago, ‘seven in 10 Americans think the United States is losing its national identity.’ Party loyalty has become synonymous with an individual’s core belief systems and their vision for the future of the country. Politics is no longer just a debate over public policy; it has morphed into an existential struggle over cultural survival. 

These issues of core national identity have now resulted in civil clashes which are evidently breaking down the United States’ institutional governance mechanisms. When civil clashes become normalised, state institutions spend more energy managing internal conflict than governing. Within the current Trump administration, popular discontent over federal funding, minority rights, and the war in Iran (amongst other issues), have all exponentially increased the intensity and frequency of demonstrative activism. 

Popular discontent across multiple domains creates a compound strain on state authority. Since the start of the second Trump administration, civil unrest has increased by 133% in 2025 compared to his first term in 2017. Meanwhile, the administration’s popularity amongst citizens has fallen to -23 as of July 19th, 2026. For comparison purposes, in July 2017 the Trump administration’s approval rating was -10. President Biden’s approval rating in July of 2021 was -16. This is demonstrative of how continuous civil unrest not only generates noise around social issues, but also drains a state government’s capacity to govern, destroying its perceived legitimacy and unravelling social cohesion. A government that spends its bandwidth reacting to internal division cannot effectively maintain its standing on the world stage.

As the younger generations––the first to exist within a digitally mediated political environment––step up and out into the world, we see an increase in the unravelling of social cohesion. Gen Z presents an interesting case study for this broader macro-social decay by reflecting to society the effects of rising economic, political, social, and technological issues. The economic and social pressures, coupled with an over-reliance on social media and technology have chipped away at the generations’ capacity for empathy and organic community connection. Digital platforms have substituted real local community connections with hyper-connected, yet isolating, online environments. In fact, the consistent over-exposure of adolescents to global catastrophes has left them completely overwhelmed and unable to act. When every global crisis is streamed directly to a smartphone screen, the sheer scale of global problems paralyses the viewer. 

The term ‘moral paralysis’ was coined by social researcher, Joshua H.K. Banda, to attempt to explain the feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness, and futility experienced by the rising generations. Young people find themselves overwhelmed by systemic issues yet feel entirely unequipped to effect real change. Given these feelings of alienation, younger generations are adopting an approach of individual survival over building or maintaining social and community institutions. Without generational buy-in, the foundational values of a society simply rot away. Over time, this erodes the entirety of a great powers’ hold over its population, resulting in its eventual collapse.

Can Decline Be Reversed?

All this is not to say that younger generations or the general public should hold the blame for great power erosion. It is not human nature or the broader public causing this breakdown, but rather systemic failure at the top. The population is reacting to conditions created by a small oligarchy competing for profit and power. Historically, when great empires collapsed, ordinary citizens often saw their lives improve because they could walk away from state domination or taxation and return to farming or hunting. In ancient collapses, walking away from the hollowed-out shell of an empire was often a genuine option. 

Today, due to globalisation and technological developments, citizens are hyper-dependent on modern state infrastructure and services, making exit impossible. Modern populations have no easy exit route when state infrastructure fails. Past climatic shifts that triggered imperial collapse were localised, whereas modern environmental and technological threats operate globally. Nuclear stockpiles, the rise of artificial intelligence, engineered pandemics, and severe global climate shifts exacerbate the consequences of societal erosion and great power collapse. The intersection of internal social rot with global existential risks makes modern collapse vastly more dangerous than historical precedents. 

These existential risks of a modern day collapse, as well as many social issues causing the deep divisions of society, are not caused by humanity as a whole. They are driven by small, powerful groups of elites who control a nation’s wealth and are continually competing for profit and control while masking the destructive consequences of their actions. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Global Elites  provides an in-depth look into how an elite class which holds most of the world’s capital shapes politics, economies, society, and even the climate. Taking the climate change disaster as an example, an article by the Guardian revealed that just 100 companies world-wide are responsible for 71% of greenhouse gas emissions since 1988, including well-known powerhouses Chevron and ExxonMobil. These small groups extract wealth while covering up the immense risk they generate for society as a whole.

While the world is certainly witnessing a return to the cyclical nature of great power rise and fall, it is important we understand that this social deterioration is not an unchangeable law. Imperial decline is not a mystical certainty; it is the predictable outcome of specific choices made by ruling elites. While this corruption on the part of the elite leads to economic and social hardship, societal decay, and eventually the systemic breakdown of a great power, a breakdown is also an opportunity to fundamentally transform the internal structures of the state. 

Societies face a choice between self-destruction or a fundamental transformation of their values and institutions. Gen Z has been particularly instrumental in this transformation. Despite facing real social strains, younger cohorts hold strong potential to spark renewal thanks to their grassroots approach and utilisation of social media to mobilise. Although they do experience apathy and general nihilism toward the future of American society, they also engage deeply with issues including climate change, mental health, and minority rights. They clearly demonstrate a capacity for meaningful action, especially when led by peers as opposed to a top-down, adult-imposed program, because they perceive their peers as having greater authenticity toward the cause. Peer-led efforts feel authentic, making them far more effective at rebuilding social connection than top-down programmes. 

By encouraging youth-led action, improving moral education, and promoting responsible digital technology use, societies can begin to reconnect young people with core values of empathy, respect, and collective well-being. Rebuilding this social cohesion from the bottom up is essential if a nation hopes to regain its sense of purpose. In the end, understanding these historical patterns of rise and fall reminds us of the critical role historical foresight plays in developing sustainable domestic and foreign policies. Without prioritising internal social balance, a great power is simply a hollowed-out shell waiting for the next shock to crack it into pieces.

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