{"id":84077,"date":"2016-12-12T12:01:30","date_gmt":"2016-12-12T12:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=84077"},"modified":"2016-12-07T14:23:44","modified_gmt":"2016-12-07T14:23:44","slug":"us-power-will-decline-under-trump-says-johan-galtung-futurist-who-predicted-soviet-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/12\/us-power-will-decline-under-trump-says-johan-galtung-futurist-who-predicted-soviet-collapse\/","title":{"rendered":"US Power Will Decline under Trump Says Johan Galtung, Futurist Who Predicted Soviet Collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"

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6 Dec 2016 – <\/em>Johan Galtung, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated sociologist who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, warned that US global power will collapse under the Donald Trump administration.<\/p>\n

The Norwegian professor at the University of Hawaii and Transcend Peace University is recognized as the \u2018founding father\u2019 of peace and conflict studies as a scientific discipline. He has made numerous accurate predictions of major world events, most notably the collapse of the Soviet Empire.<\/p>\n

Back in 2000, Galtung first set out his prediction that the \u201cUS empire\u201d would collapse within 25 years.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Galtung has also accurately predicted the 1978 Iranian revolution; the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989 in China; the economic crises of 1987, 2008 and 2011; and even the 9\/11 attacks\u2014among other events, according to the late Dietrich Fischer, academic director of the European University Center for Peace Studies.<\/p>\n

Back in 2000, Galtung first set out his prediction that the \u201cUS empire\u201d would collapse within 25 years. After the election of President Bush, though, he revised that forecast five years forward because, he argued, Bush\u2019s policies of extreme militarism would be an accelerant.<\/p>\n

After the election of Trump, I thought it might be prudent to check in with Galtung to see how he was feeling about the status of his US forecast. Galtung told Motherboard that Trump would probably continue this trajectory of accelerated decline\u2014and may even make it happen quicker. Of course, with typical scientific caution, he said he would prefer to see what Trump\u2019s actual policies are before voicing a clear verdict.<\/p>\n

The Model<\/strong><\/p>\n

Galtung has doctoral degrees in both sociology and mathematics, and some decades ago developed a theory of \u201csynchronizing and mutually reinforcing contradictions\u201d, which he used to make his forecasts. The model was based on comparing the rise and fall of 10 historical empires.<\/p>\n

In 1980, Galtung used his theoretical model to map the interaction of various social contradictions inside the Soviet empire, leading him to predict its demise within 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery few believed him at the time\u201d, writes Dietrich Fischer in the main biography and anthology of Galtung\u2019s works, Pioneer for Peace<\/em>, \u201cbut it occurred on November 9, 1989, two months before his time limit, 1990.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the USSR, Galtung\u2019s model identified five key structural contradictions in Soviet society which, he said, would inevitably lead to its fragmentation\u2014unless the USSR underwent a complete transformation.<\/p>\n

The model works like this: the more those contradictions deepen, the greater the likelihood they will result in a social crisis that could upend the existing order.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the case of the USSR, the main structural contradictions were as follows: the working class was increasingly repressed and unable to self-organise through trade unions (ironic given the country\u2019s Communist pretensions); the wealthier \u2018bourgeoisie\u2019 or elite had money to spend, but nothing to buy from domestic production, leading to economic stagnation; Russian intellectuals wanted more freedom of expression; minorities wanted more autonomy; and peasants wanted more freedom of movement<\/p>\n

The model works like this: the more those contradictions deepen, the greater the likelihood they will result in a social crisis that could upend the existing order.<\/p>\n

Eventually, as the highly centralised structures of the Soviet empire were unable to accommodate these intensifying pressures, the top-down structures would have to collapse.<\/p>\n

Galtung later began to apply his model to the United States. In 1996, he wrote a scientific paper<\/a> published by George Mason University\u2019s Institute for Conflict Analysis & Resolution warning that \u201cthe USA will soon go the same way as [previous] imperial constructions\u2026 decline and fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fascism?<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the main book<\/a> setting out Galtung\u2019s fascinating forecast for the US is his 2009 book, The Fall of the American Empire\u2014and then What?<\/em><\/p>\n

The book sets out a whopping 15 \u201csynchronizing and mutually reinforcing contradictions\u201d afflicting the US, which he says will lead to US global power ending by 2020\u2014within just four years. Galtung warned that during this phase of decline, the US was likely to go through a phase of reactionary \u201cfascism\u201d.<\/p>\n

He argued that American fascism would come from a capacity for tremendous global violence; a vision of American exceptionalism as the \u201cfittest nation\u201d; a belief in a coming final war between good and evil; a cult of the strong state leading the fight of good against evil; and a cult of the \u201cstrong leader\u201d.<\/p>\n

Galtung warned that during this phase of decline, the US was likely to go through a phase of reactionary \u201cfascism\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

All of which, Galtung said, surfaced during the Bush era, and which now appear to have come to fruition through Trump. Such fascism, he told Motherboard, is a symptom of the decline\u2014lashing out in disbelief at the loss of power.<\/p>\n

Among the 15 structural contradictions his model identifies as driving the decline, are:<\/p>\n