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POLITICAL MIDLIFE CRISIS A Political Midlife Crisis is a turning point in the fortunes of a governing entity, such as an empire, nation, faction, political party or an international alliance. These events occur after a prolonged golden age of optimism, economic progress, conquest or other success, and typically feature an attack on, or threats toward, a rival power. These attacks are vigorously opposed, end in stalemate or defeat. The political midlife crisis is then followed by an era of existential doubt, pessimism and hesitancy. ===HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT=== Joshua S Goldstein in his 1988 book, Long Cycles; Prosperity and War in the Modern Age was the first to write explicitly about this phenomenon. He cited four examples;

1) The British Empire. After the industrial revolution and the railway boom of 1815-53, Britain attacked Russia, which was perceived as a threat to British India and eastern Mediterranean trade routes thereto. The Crimean war highlighted the poor state of the British army and the UK took no further part in European wars until 1914.

2) The German Empire (second Reich) and World War One. Germany under Bismarck was unified from 1864-71, then achieved forty years of rapid industrial, military and colonial expansion. In 1914 the Schlieffen Plan for conquering France in eight weeks was to be followed by the subjugation of Russia, leaving Germany the master of  Mitteleuropa. France, UK and Russia then fought Germany to a standstill, defeat, a humiliating peace settlement, and the unstable, vacillating years of the Weimar Republic.

3) The USSR and the Cuban missile crisis. The USSR industrialised rapidly under Stalin and was a rival nuclear superpower to the US when in 1962, Khrushchev sent nuclear missiles to Cuba, 70 miles from Florida. President John F Kennedy blockaded the island and insisted the missiles be removed.

4) The USA and the Vietnam War. America, always ideologically opposed to communism, fought a losing battle against their agents, the Vietcong, from 1964-72. The belief that defeat would result in all of Indochina being Communised proved erroneous.

After Cuba and Vietnam, both superpowers softened their stance and sought cooperation and detente. In the 1960's two major ideas emerged; neoconservatism in the USA, and the Werner plan for European monetary union(EMU). Recent events such as 9/11, and the inconclusive Iraq and Afghan wars prompted professor Gary Weaver and Adam Mendelson to publish The American Midlife Crisis in 2008: they cite a survey of 109 historians, 99% of whom rated George W Bush a 'failure' as president, two-thirds rating him the 'worst ever'. Weaver and Mendelson write that the US was in its 'childhood' prior to 1898; adolescence from 1898-1945; young adulthood from 1945-91; adulthood from 1991-2001. The trauma of the Bush presidency caused the US to be 'seasoned with new strength, wisdom and maturity'. The implication is that the US has another 250 years or so until it reaches senility. But the analysis appears slightly arbitrary and sanguine, given the many other US crises; the war of 1812, US-Mexican war, American Civil war, Indian wars, Great depression, Cuban missile crisis, and the Vietnam war; it is possible that the US has experienced not one, but several midlife crises, each affecting a faction rather than the whole nation. The Eurozone crisis has been called the EU midlife crisis in articles by Gideon Rachman,, Roland Benedikter, , and Natalie Nougayrede. ===OTHER MIDLIFE CRISES IN HISTORY=== In War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy asks, 'What is the cause of this movement which took the French army all the way from Paris to Moscow, and then back to Paris? A system, a mysterious callous force...the unconscious swarm-life of mankind.' In France, the Napoleonic age begun by Napoleon I in 1799 was resumed by his nephew Napoleon III from 1848-70. The decision to invade Russia in 1812 was thus the midlife crisis of the Napoleonic era which began with Napoleon I in 1798, and ended with Napoleon III in 1870. It was supposed to secure a French-Russian alliance which would then conquer India, but ended in a rout, and the exile of Bonaparte; prompting Stanley Michalak to write that 'In 1812 napoleon failed the supreme test of power politics - knowing when to stop.' The Stuart dynasty ruled England from 1603 to 1714, but in the middle of this episode, Charles I pushed his royal absolutism too far and was defeated, deposed and beheaded by the patliamentary forces of Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army. The Amritsar massacre is recognized as a turning point in the British Raj in India, as it horrified world opinion and encouraged agitation for independence. ( see William Dalrymple, ). Likewise, the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 in Apartheid South Africa brought on a state of emergency, and drove the ANC underground in an armed struggle. )  An article in The Economist ( was one of the first to recognize the nature of the Credit Crunch of 2007-8.

===THEORETICAL EXPLANATION=== Goldstein's concept begs the question; if polities have a midlife crisis, when does that life begin and end? Islamic scholar Ibn Khaldun, in the Muqadimmah, 1377, set out a general theory of the rise and fall of regimes. First a ruthless conquerer with 'desert attitude' establishes a new dynasty. Over several years, Royal authority and 'asabiyyah', social cohesion, enable 'expansion to the limit'. But here a turning point is reached, just as in the life of an individual; When a man reaches forty, nature stops growing for a while, then starts to          decline. The same is the case with sedentary culture in civilisation. The sedentary culture of the dynasty causes them to love luxury and pomp. The people are over-taxed, and acquire the 'habit of subservience' ; their rulers subvert property rights, and are weak, dishonest and divided. Finally, after three generations, equivalent to the lifespan of a man, the dynasty becomes 'senile and coercive ' There may be a last 'brightly burning show of power', but collapse is inevitable. A new dynasty takes over, and the cycle continues. Ibn Khaldun said, 'this senility is a chronic disease that cannot be cured because it is something natural.' That conclusion may have been sufficient for his time, but in our age of fervently opposed ideologies and WMD, a greater effort of understanding may be called for. ===QUOTATIONS=== 'An earthly paradise is not made by this endless repetition, going round and round like a caged animal, making always the same thing. Take instead a step on the ascent of rational knowledge.'. -Jacob Bronowski 'The world is suffering from a kind of mental illness which must be diagnosed before it can be cured.'. -George Orwell. Essay, 19/11/1946 <.ref>