The Fate of Empires: From Hunters to the Hunted

An empire must choose—or is eventually forced—to be either the hunter or the hunted. In its hunter phase, the empire is animated by a collective purpose. Its population is united, industrious, ambitious, morally upright, and spiritually driven. They believe in conquest, in the transformation of the world through labor and sacrifice. They build roads, bridges, and cities; they tame nature with their machines; they unlock the secrets of the universe with science. Their heroes are military commanders, selfless patriots, visionary statesmen, and pioneering industrialists—the men and women who build, fight, and endure.

But no empire remains the hunter forever. Eventually, weariness sets in. The very people who once embraced conquest begin to question its morality. Warfare is denounced as cruel and regressive. Infrastructure is seen not as a mark of progress but as an assault on nature. The will to dominate wanes, replaced by a craving for comfort and harmony. The population becomes fragmented, disillusioned, hedonistic, and indifferent. Virtue gives way to relativism; religion yields to cynicism. Their heroes change too: no longer builders and warriors, but celebrities without substance, artists without conviction, intellectuals without allegiance, and politicians without honor.

In this late phase, the empire seeks survival through appeasement. It attempts to buy peace with negotiation, compromise, and bribes. It explores philosophies that promise order without power, and justice without struggle. But beneath this search lies a deeper truth: the empire is no longer willing to defend itself. It has become the hunted.

In the twenty-first century, the dominant Western empire finds itself in precisely this condition. The forces that once drove it outward have turned inward, and its enemies no longer lie solely beyond its borders but within them. The predators are circling. If the arc of history holds true, this empire may not survive beyond 2050—making way for the rise of one or several new empires, still in the hunter’s phase: energetic, aggressive, and unashamed of power.