"Empires require enormous resources and capital to survive. They begin by exploiting economies of political and military scale and end by exhausting themselves defending their domains. AI is the most capital-intensive imperial project in history, undertaken by two superpowers that are already weighed down by debt. The lesson of past empires is not that either collision or decline is inevitable. It is that the conditions for both—a runaway arms race over a scarce resource, overstretched public financing, mounting domestic backlash, and rent-seeking elites afflicted by strategic myopia—are already present. Which AI empire will forge its power into a legitimate and durable order and which will repeat the age-old mistakes that lead to decline are being decided now. What is entirely new is the speed with which this process is unfolding: these questions are being settled at a pace that exceeds the ability of either political system to remain in control. Peaceful coexistence was hard enough in the nuclear age—and in the end, one of the superpowers declined and fell. It will be far harder to repeat this benign outcome in a world increasingly run by powerful and relentlessly self-improving machines." (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/empires-artificial-intelligence-ferguson-klaassen-schmidt)