Government "Overreach" and Powerless Emperor

My friend told me: "We are not an Empire. Empires were ruled by one man called Emperor. We are a Democracy, however flawed and inefficient."

It depends on one's definition. An empire, to me, is any state entity that attempts to rule over other states, or peoples, with or without their consent. A Democracy, on the other hand is a state ruled by the people. I suppose that's still formally the case, as it was even after Augustus took over in Rome, but the two are not mutually exclusive, again true in both the early Roman Empire and today. Augustus was formally elected. So was Obama. In the latter case, it was a genuinely democratic election, but that doesn't make much difference: the military apparently has the last say, anyway.

In the US, we have a President who made a great effort to go against "military wisdom," and decide that American troops should begin withdrawing from Afghanistan in the summer of 2011, and that the US would abide by the treaty signed by Bush to withdraw from Iraq in the same period.

Yet, already, General Petraeus and Secretary Gates are undercutting those stated policies. Petraeus is pushing for the President to back down on his Afghan commitment, and Gates told the Iraqis that "we" would happily stay longer if they asked. In addition to the rhetoric, actions on the ground speak louder: the huge, imperial-like embassy in Baghdad, and the huge embassy now to be built in Kabul do not bespeak withdrawal; they express an expectation that we will stay, as do the huge, self-sufficient "permanent" US bases.

We can spend three-quarters of a billion dollars to construct these imperial edifices and employ thousands in both Iraq and Afghanistan to build them (and $1,000,000 per soldier/year) but we can't spend money for jobs at home: that's government "over-reach" say the newly elected GOP Congressmen and Senators.

The "emperor" will not be able to spend money at home to stimulate job creation, or to green grow the economy; that's only possible in a non-imperial nation, like China?

So, instead, the Fed attempts to re-stimulate the economy through "quantitative easing," but everyone from bond speculators to the "mad-and-can't-take-it-anymore" crowd think this will roil the dollar into an inflationary spiral. On the other hand, what should policy-makers do? Let the nation--and probably the world--slide into a double-dip recession, and not only recession, but a new Great Depression, complete with trade war?

Note: there is no inflation, despite price rises in energy and commodities, which probably means that there is deflation in a lot of economic sectors.

Unless the President/Emperor can act decisively to stop the slide, we will descend into misery, and beggar the world, too. Will the US Empire collapse?

An emperor without power is the worst of all possible alternatives.