Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

To the Editor:

In “Like
Rome Before the Fall? Not Yet” (Op-Ed, Feb. 25), Piers Brendon does
not mention the British historian Paul Kennedy’s biggest point in his
book “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”: all great powers fall. The
issue, therefore, is not “if” the American empire will end but “when”—and how?

Will it be with a polite British whimper or a Roman bang? Rome fell,
some historians say, because of its inability to assimilate millions of
“barbarians” on its frontiers. Today half of humanity has its nose
pressed against the glass of the global banquet the richer half enjoys.
If these poorer people don’t get into this global game, they may be
tempted to try to kick it over.

America’s wars from Vietnam onward have shown that superior
battlefield technology does not always translate into victory. Should
the destructive capacity of radical groups in an age of increasingly
available weapons of mass destruction achieve anything approaching
parity with American military technology, then America might well find
itself in Rome’s sandals.

Carl Luna
San Diego, Feb. 27, 2010
The writer is a professor of political science at San Diego Mesa College.