They were the poles of the world from 1945 to 1990, but less than 45 years after that, both are in serious decline, and for very similar reasons. Empires die for two main reasons, loss of economic power and loss of military credibility.
The USSR was never as economically powerful as the USA, although it hid that well. It spent much of its income on its military, which gave it credibility. The USA was genuinely economically powerful, and turned that into credible military power without cramping its economy much.
Once the Cold War ended, both empires decided how to redistribute their economy. Both, by different routes, decided to give all that money to their elites. It has not turned out well for either.
The US made a fetish of tax cutting for the wealthy, and persuaded the poor to reject ideas – like universal healthcare – that would have made their lives better, but taken money away from the wealthy. It had a burst of technological innovation in the 1980s and 1990s, which turned into huge businesses in the 2000s. Many of the workers in those businesses are now close to being serfs, and the “AI” boom is trying to complete the process by making skilled workers serve machines which produce average output by design, and only create anything new by accident. Meanwhile, manufacturing was exported to countries with lower wages. That was easier for finance-orientated managers than increasing efficiency. The cults of the CEO and financialisation, and the spread of conspiracy theories to distract people who ask questions, let the rich take all the liquid assets.
Russia found its industries uncompetitive and rather than fix that, turned itself into a resource-exporter. Since the criminals were the people who understood non-communist economics best, they ended up as oligarchs, holding all the liquid assets. Conspiracy theories had always been popular, and became even stronger.
In both countries, corruption flourished and became a normal part of their political systems. Russia pioneered that, and the USA is now racing to catch up, not worrying about collateral damage.
Both have destroyed their own military credibility, Russia in Ukraine and the USA in Iran. Both have lots of nuclear weapons, but are finding that they’re a lot less useful than they hoped. Nowadays, they act as a deterrent, up to a fuzzy line that nobody wants to cross. Russia allowing its nuclear systems to decay may have been more cost-effective than the ostensible careful maintenance by the US.
Both are effectively autocracies as regards their foreign and military policies, and both have leadership sufficiently incompetent at that that they have sacrificed their military credibility for their rulers’ egos.
They find themselves in wars that they don’t know how to win, or even to fight effectively. Russia is licensing production of drones from Iran, because their designs are better. The USA hasn’t understood that the point of drones is cheapness, a terrible mistake for the country that invented mass production, and is building more capable ones that are far too expensive. This persists because of corruption: it suits their defence industry, whom their military commanders can’t argue with without loosing their highly paid future “jobs” with the same companies.
Can either of these empires be saved?
Russia is almost certainly doomed. It’s likely to fragment as the parts that produce resources lose patience with the central government. That situation has been developing for decades and is probably unstoppable now.
The USA might be salvageable, but it would be very hard. It would require the population as a whole, including the military and the police, to understand just how much damage Trump – and those who’ve made use of him – have done, and to support a purge on a scale that under normal circumstances would utterly unacceptable. It would require the Democratic Party, and the remains of the Republican Party, to act in reasonable unity on that, abandoning the reflexive rivalry and comfortable corruption of decades. Most US politicians won’t be able to dispense with those pillars of their careers.
Both countries would need to reconstruct their economies, educational systems, and media. Both would have to turn many currently powerful people into pariahs, rejecting their ideas and actions utterly.
None of this seems likely.
I am sorry for the Americans I know personally, most of whom know better.
I can’t be sorry for the American people as a whole, because they re-elected Trump, after having seen him in action. His actions in slashing aid and making war will create endless examples of the very worst sort of cruelty: making mothers watch their children die of disease and hunger. Both will be made more common by the rapid cuts to international aid, without allowing time for adjustment. Diseases will spread because Trump promotes anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. The blocking of the Strait of Hormuz has created a bottleneck in world fertiliser production, which will raise prices and reduce crop yields. The West will suffer more inflation, but poor countries will starve.
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ingenero
