UK, as a case study of evolution of modern capitalist societies, is emblematic to the cyclical nature of nation states. When UK started first industrial revolution, it practiced raw capitalism. Fast forward to today, UK becomes a society of post-capitalism. I guess, god knows, there are a few critical factors that underpin this evolution. I just want to point to one factor that is missing in China's dynastic history: UK's parliamentary democracy, which so far fails to save UK from its downward spiral. I guess the model of representative democracy is getting into a crisis mode as more formerly advanced democratic nations are struggling nowadays. In this backdrop, it is only logical that UK is going to be America's bitch for the foreseeable future, because it has effectively shut all other doors for its survival.
The west entered terminal decline as soon as it became possible and socially acceptable for capitalists to fundamentally and blatantly alter the laws of countries to create an uneven playing field in favour of themselves, to the detriment of everyone else.
The whole field of economics rests on some pretty shakily unrealistic assumptions to start with, but to allow individuals and groups to change the rules of the game in their favour fundamentally alters the way economies allocate resources, from innovation of technology to extract maximum profits from natural resources to how to game the system to gain maximum advantage. Thus the system moves from growth to rent extraction. Rather than have the best and brightest in society work towards growing the pie for all, they instead compete with each other for the bigger slice.
Nothing is as emblematic of this as Wall Street, where the best and brightest in America are drawn by unmatched salaries to work in fields that adds zero to an economy’s technological advancement.
America offset much of the negatives from this practice by sucking the rest of the world of its scientists and engineers, but even that is only a band-aid and does not reverse the overall trend. First generation immigrants might come in as scientists, doctors and engineers, but second and third generation aspire to careers in Finance, legal and media fields.
The UK is essentially a fast forwarded version of America because while it apes American bad practices, it does not have the soft power pull to attract immigrants on the same scale and of the same quality as America to fill the critical roles locals cannot compete in, thus its decline is faster and more pronounced.
The only way America can stay top of the world with these terminal internal flaws it cannot fix is to instead destroy the competition, so it can gorge on the natural resources and human talent from its defeated foe to stave off its own decline, a vampire sucking its victim dry, like it did with the USSR.
This is the true reason American elites still obsess about destroying Russia and China. They want Russia’s natural resources and China’s human capital to keep their broken system running until the next victim grows fat enough to harvest to keep sustaining them.