Get A Grip: The End of Empire > The History of The Future Present?

To introduce this post, the genesis springs from your MesaZona's blogger most frequent Twitter communicator, Niall Ferguson. Nothing he writes is off-the-top of his head; it is steeped in a wide-ranging grasp and understanding of history from academia actively involved in contemporaneous events. Among other positions, Niall Ferguson is senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University

Opinion  | Niall Ferguson in The Boston Globe

The coming world crisis

By Niall Ferguson   August 28, 2017

All over the world, antiquated political institutions are in crisis. It will soon become clear that authoritarian regimes are in just as much trouble as the democracies, even if they can hide it better.

Ferguson's opinion piece starts with this: “Is the world slouching toward a grave systemic crisis?” asked historian Philip Zelikow at the annual gathering of the Aspen Strategy Group earlier this month. Now that’s what I call a question!
and ends with this: " . . .the history of the future shrouds itself in its customary mystery, mocking our attempts to predict it.
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On August 5, Philip Zelikow delivered the following keynote address at the annual meeting of the Aspen Strategy Group, a discussion forum for experts and government practitioners. Zelikow, who is currently the White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia, has served at all levels of American government, and for administrations of both parties—including roles at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon. He was also the executive director of the 9/11 Commission. In this speech he reflects on the much-discussed concept of “world order,” interrogates the claim that a “more open” world is really better for Americans, and issues a warning about America’s world leadership. The full text is here > https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive 
Do open societies really work better than closed ones? Is a more open and civilized world really safer and better for Americans? If we think yes, then what is the best way to prove that point?
Zelikow's answer comes in three parts in the keynote address, using George Orwell as one of reference points
Every one of America’s major adversaries now has the strategic initiative.
They—Russia, Iran, China—are currently better positioned to set the time, place, and manner of engagement, including political engagement. On every vector, we react.
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"Zelikow, who teaches at the University of Virginia, is more than just a history professor. He has also served Republican as well as Democratic presidents in the White House, State Department, and Pentagon. His pessimism is that of a practitioner as well as a scholar.
Zelikow resists the temptation to engage in the kind of Trump-bashing that is more or less obligatory in Aspen, where liberal Manhattan goes each summer to breathe cool Colorado air. His critique is directed at all three of the post-9/11 administrations.
Zelikow laments that instead of asking pragmatic questions — like “Where can we do the most to tilt the balance toward an open and civilized world?” or “What states or regions or issues are pivotal?” — the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations have all been lured by the threat of Islamic terrorism into “the broken ‘wilderness’ areas of the world . . . just the places that . . . are least likely to change the course of world history in any positive way.”

"As Zelikow rightly notes — and as I tried to explain back in 2003 — this is the late Victorian imperial playbook ...:

Ferguson's entire opinion piece can be viewed in this link >
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/08/28