🌏 The Age of Empires #1

We are in the Age of Empires. Do I mean those historic real-time strategy video games? It can feel like that.

We are though, genuinely, at a stratospheric inflection point - one where the world might be shifting from superpowers to hyper-powers: from the Age of Empires, to the Age of Hyper-Empires.

There have been, all told, no more than seventy empires in history; the American empire is the sixty-eighth; Communist China is the sixty-ninth and some would claim that the European Union was to be (still could be) the seventieth.

So to start with the American “empire” the question has been for some time, at least the last half-century, for how long the US would continue to lead the free world, once other countries, benefitting from precisely the liberal economic order that the US empire has made possible, began to catch up.

This is often known as ‘hegemonic stability theory’ - would America return to protectionist policies in an effort to harden its imperial grasp on the free world, or would it hold fast on free trade at the risk of experiencing relative decline? This is the same dilemma that Britain had faced before 1914, as her empire declined, and the same dilemma that presumably the other sixty-seven empires had faced, which have gone before.

Some have equally framed this as ‘imperial overstretch’ - an empire or dominant state that has extended its military, foreign, economic and political commitments to the point that it weakens the nation’s own economic base, and thereby its national security; again, pre-World War I Britain and the Soviet Union are both prime examples.

We must though test whether we think that is indeed the case with the US - is this imperial overstretch, or evolution into something of a greater scale and strength than we’ve seen before? From empire to hyper-empire.

And then to Europe, an increasingly united political and economic entity, and certainly a geographic unit, and quite possibly the seventieth empire.

Many have foreseen a time when the European Union will act as an effective counterweight to American power; and, to a degree, the UK (when it was part of the European Union) was the US’ hotline into that emerging counterweight. And that is an important point to note when we consider the UK and its global relevance.

And what of China, the UK’s relationship with China has been characterised by rich cultural exchange since the 17th century, and by diplomacy, with the UK being the first major Western power to recognise the People’s Republic of China in 1950. There have been moments however where no love has been lost between the two, because the UK’s relationship with China has also been characterised by centuries of colonial conflict, the Opium Wars, friction over human rights, Taiwan, and the erosion of autonomy in Hong Kong.

As the British Empire expanded in the early 19th century - knowing no limits - it needed trade to fund its expansion eastwards. Trading ships from Britain carrying thousands of tons of opium (grown from imperial colonies in India) came and went from China, returning westwards with Chinese tea, silks and porcelain. Come the 1930s, however, millions of Chinese people were addicted to British-supplied opium and when China tried to stop the ongoing trade, Britain sent warships. Addicted, and defeated, China was compelled to hand over Hong Kong, pay reparations to the British, and keep the opium trade open. This is the ‘Opium Wars’ - a period that China calls “The Century of Humiliation”.

Addicted, defeated, humiliated. As we reflect on this Age of Empires - and the emergence of hyper-powers - it’s key that we reflect with humility on what has gone before, and what we can learn from it. History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

This is the first in a short series of articles, which I presented as a speech in March 2026. I am looking at this in a bit more detail, will add the roles of Australia and India into the mix, and eventually will land on some key thoughts for the UK in this geopolitical context, and for our precious technology and innovation communities.