The state-owned Bank of China has been ordered by an American court to hand over customer information to the US. The bank has refused to comply, as to do so would violate China's privacy law. The US court has subsequently ordered the Bank of China to pay a fine of $50,000 per day.

Any guess as to how this is likely to turn out?

China is a sovereign nation, halfway around the globe from the US, yet the US seems to feel that it's somehow entitled to set the rules for China (as well as the other nations in the world). When China sees fit to develop islands in the South China Sea that it has laid claim to for centuries, it begins to hear threatening noises from the US military. A candidate for US president declares that he would buzz the islands with Air Force One, the Presidential jet, saying, "They'll know we mean business."

All over the world, those who live outside the US are increasingly observing that the US has become so drunk with power that they're threatening both friend and foe with fines, trade restrictions, monetary sanctions, warfare, and invasions.

And in so-observing, those of us who have studied the history of empires note that history is once again repeating itself. Time and time again, great empires build themselves up through industriousness and sound economic management only to subsequently decline into debt, complacency, and an entitlement mind-set.

Over the millennia, empires as disparate as Persia, Rome, Spain, and Great Britain rose to dominate the world. Of course, we know how those empires turned out and, by extension, we might hazard an educated guess as to how the present American Empire will end.

In the final throes of empire-decline, we invariably observe the more sociopathic trends of a failing power, such as we're seeing today from the US.

First and foremost, any empire declines as a result of economic mismanagement. Decline from within (pandering to the populace with "bread and circuses") and without (endless conquest and/or maintenance of dominance over far-flung geography) drain even the wealthiest government. Even eighteenth-century Spain, with all its billions in stolen New World gold, could not pay its ever-increasing bills and warfare-driven debt.

Typically, the empire of the day enjoys the world's greatest fighting force/armada/weapons build-up yet, when the money runs out, the war machine simply stops. Soldiers think more about their empty bellies than how much ammunition they have left. Generals continue to issue orders, but they cease to be followed after the supply lines begin to dry up.

And the leaders of a collapsing empire invariably make a fatal mistake: they assume that all the goodwill the empire gained when it was on its rise is permanent – that it will continue, even if the empire behaves like the world's foremost bully.

This is never the outcome. Invariably, as the decline nears its end, allies, without ever saying so, begin to withdraw their support. We see this today, as European leaders (America's most essential allies) realise that the empire is becoming an arrogant liability and they begin cutting deals with the other side, as European leaders are now doing with Russia and others.

For a century or more, there's been much talk amongst highly placed government and industry leaders of a New World Order, and there can be no doubt that this has been a long-term objective for Western leaders. They see themselves as being at the head of this order, with the rest of the powers coming along for the ride and the non-powers being forced to comply.

The US, with its ever-expanding draconian legislation, clearly intends to bring this Orwellian ideal to fruition in the relatively near future as they speed up the process of dominance over all. With some countries, such as the traditional allies, it's intended to be implemented through coercion and a promise of inclusiveness. For those who the US does not hold close, but needs as trading partners, this is intended to be achieved through fines, trade restrictions, and sanctions (if possible) and force (if necessary). The lesser countries will be overcome through bullying or, if necessary, invasion.

But, again, empires decline principally through loss of economic power. And the US is attempting the greatest world-control in history at the same time as the money is running out.