The Sick Man of the West?

The Ottoman Empire’s best days were behind it as World War I broke out in Europe. It remained largely agrarian while Europe mechanized. It lost critical territories through the 1800s. Political thinkers through the 19th century predicted the Ottoman demise. Financially the country was in ruin. By 1873, it could only meet half of its annual debt obligation. Even after a 1908 reform, the military of the Ottoman empire lagged behind its more modern European counterparts, and relied heavily on arms suppliers from other countries (mostly Germany).

The Ottoman decline is not obvious only in retrospect. Ostensibly, Czar Nicholas I described the Ottoman empire as “a sick man” as early as 1853. Cartoonists from the mid-19th century through the end of WWI had a field day with the Ottoman Empire:

If a global war were to strike today, would the US be the “sick man”? The US has not proven particularly successful in recent military engagements (even if the cause is not due to limitations in military might). US national debt continues to skyrocket. The US government seems bloated, wayward, and without executive direction.

Certainly though, the US has advantages over the Ottoman empire. The US military is without dispute the most well equipped in the world and in a total war scenario is likely to fare better than most countries globally. But what if the next crisis, the one that exposes the sick man is not war?

If the crisis is humanitarian, climate change, pandemic, or technological, is the United States better off than the Ottoman Empire was at the onset of WWI? I think that is a harder question to answer. The US has been slow to enact policy change, even when the majority of its citizens desire the change. On a global stage US “soft power” appears to be waning, although we may find that US corporations had more “soft power” than any US governmental entity for a long time. With the current level of polarization, distrust in government, and special interest influence, will the US be able to keep up with the thought leaders in the next crisis? Or will we see the comics above–with the US as the sick man of the West?

*Author’s note: A comparison between the Ottoman Empire during WWI and the US will never be accurate. I don’t mean to imply that the US will carry out genocide in its decline, nor do I want to minimize the Armenian genocide by not referencing it in this post. I recommend that all readers familiarize themselves with that terrible period of time.