What’s the shelf life of empires? Decades, maybe centuries. All things come to an end. Recall Shelley’s great poem Ozymandias about the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses the Great and his seemingly invincible kingdom. Ozymandias was Greek for Ramses. I met a traveller from an antique land,  Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone  Stand in the desert. And on the pedestal, these words appear My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;  Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay  Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare  The lone and level sands stretch far away.” It is difficult to discuss imperialism because there is virtually uniform elite opinion that the U.S. is not an empire. Washington will not willingly concede its global superpower position. But remember the omnipotent British Empire? Where is it today?