After the Empire, by Emmanuel Todd

A superpower running on empty

At a time when American military power is unchallenged and the Bush administration is as rampant as ever, it may seem premature to announce "the breakdown of the American order". But that is precisely what Emmanuel Todd has done in After the Empire. The French demographer and statistician is no stranger to controversy: in 1976 he was the first to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union, on the basis of a careful analysis of its declining birth-rate.

At a time when American military power is unchallenged and the Bush administration is as rampant as ever, it may seem premature to announce "the breakdown of the American order". But that is precisely what Emmanuel Todd has done in After the Empire. The French demographer and statistician is no stranger to controversy: in 1976 he was the first to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union, on the basis of a careful analysis of its declining birth-rate.

In this latest thought-provoking book, Todd predicts the end of another empire. He examines the fundamental weaknesses of the US to conclude that, contrary to conventional wisdom, America is fast losing its grip on the world stage in economic, military and ideological terms.

America became an empire not by strategy but by accident, following the sudden collapse of its main adversary. With the globalisation of investment, it then indulged in the luxury of conspicuous consumption on a cushion of incoming capital while floating deeper and deeper into debt. To keep the rest of the world in check, and prevent its creditors calling in the chips, all America needed to do then was to wield a big stick, according to Todd. Even then, America chose the lazy option.

"The real America is too weak to take on anyone except military midgets," Todd says. Hence the hostility to such states as North Korea, Cuba, and even Iraq, an underdeveloped country of 24 million exhausted by a decade of sanctions. Todd argues that such "conflicts that represent little or no military risk" allow a US presence throughout the world. In any case, America would be incapable of challenging a more powerful country.

The risk for America, Todd argues, is that its clumsy tactics could backfire by provoking a geostrategic realignment in Europe and Asia. Increasingly, the rest of the world is producing so that America can consume. If Europe, Russia and Japan draw closer as a result of the "drunken sailor" swaggering of the US, then Washington will have achieved exactly the opposite of what it sought.

Writing for an English-language readership in a fresh introduction, Todd insists that he is not just another anti-American French intellectual. In France, the Todd family, with its Jewish-American background, "is suspected of having a culpable preference for America and England".

Todd is at his most convincing when examining developments from his perspective as a demographer. He demonstrates the twin benefits of a drop in birth-rates and rise in literacy. His contrasting studies of American, European and Russian family structures are fascinating. After the Empire seems on shakier ground when drawing conclusions from economic trends.

Todd insists that he yearns for America to return to its true self: liberal, democratic and productive. But, right now, "only one threat to global stability hangs over the world today - the United States itself, which was once a protector and is now a predator."