pcr here in this piece describes why the empire is a potemkin village. he also tells us why we will fall and perhaps soon;


A Book For Our Time, A Time That Perhaps Has Run Its Course
Paul Craig Roberts
American post-WW 2 supremacy, writes Andrei Martyanov in his book, Losing Military Supremacy just published by Clarity Press, has been destroyed by America’s narcissism. https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Military-Supremacy-American-Strategic/dp/0998694754/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535577199&sr=1-1&keywords=andrei+martyanov
The arrogant hubris of American exceptionalism and the myths that sustain it are subjected to devastating analysis in this long overdue book. Martyanov has no patience with American strategic thinkers, Russian experts, American war myths, and General George S. Patton. No nation has ever assembled a greater collection of ignorant fools than the US and trusted them with the leadership of the country.
The consequence for America of the unreal image of itself in which the ruling elites live is a “very dangerous decline of American cognitive faculties” and “a complete loss of sound reasoning across the whole spectrum of national activities from foreign policy, to economics, to war, to culture.” The hegemony claimed and pursued by neoconservatives, liberal interventionists, and garrulous patriots is inconsistent with the incompetence and delusion of the ruling American elites.


https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/08/29/a-book-for-our-time-a-time-that-perhaps-has-run-its-course/