How do great powers come undone? We can start with a destructive force without equal: self-delusion.

Emperor Norton comes to mind in this context. In 1859, in the Gold Rush-enriched city of San Francisco, Joshua Norton, a bankrupt businessman, declared himself "Emperor of these United States" in a proclamation that he signed "Norton I, Emperor of the United States."

This grandiosity played well in the rough and tumble "get rich quick, then lose it all" zeitgeist of San Francisco, and rather than be abused or disabused, Norton was "treated deferentially in San Francisco and elsewhere in California, and currency issued in his name was honored in some of the establishments he frequented."

In other words, his self-delusion was humored. On a grand scale, the same can be said of Great Powers: they humor their own self-delusion.

The progression of a Great Power from self-delusion to collapse was insightfully traced out by Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik in the late 1960s, when Amalrik predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, the lone voice to make such a bold prediction at the apex of Soviet power.

Amalrik's analysis was nuanced, drawing upon the human weaknesses that blind us to our own self-deception and rosy assumptions. Chief among these is the comforting belief that "it will all work out because it's always worked out before," an assumption that blinds us to the extraordinary nature of the crisis and the decay that we avoid recognizing beneath the surface of normal life.

Amalrik noted that the primary motivation of the various classes and interest groups was self-preservation, seeking to maintain whatever each faction currently held in terms of wealth and power. The misguided assumption made by all was that the system was so stable and powerful that they didn't need to concern themselves with anything beyond securing their position in the system.

As the system destabilizes, nobody notices because they're focused solely on the infighting borne of self-preservation.

He was also alert to the government's role in mediating the forces seeking to suppress reforms as dangers to the status quo and those seeking to force reforms on a sclerotic systems, and how seemingly small policy decisions can grease the skids to rapidly unfolding crises few imagined were even possible.