Human history functions in a predictable way, just as moths function in a predictable way. Human beings are social animals and act with in parameters of their design. Nature is not entirely random, there are patterns.
If God knows the future, then we have no free will. We will only do what is already in God's mind. So if there is a supreme being, I choose to believe that he is as ignorant of the absolute future as I am.
Russia is the only country that is even remotely like an empire today,in that it has many nationalities that do not have the option of becoming independent.On the other hand, they do have elective self-governance, unlike the pre-WWI empires.
After WWI, the remaining empires were England, Portugal and France. I think Spain had some territory in Morocco it no longer has, and I think there were small Italian colonies in Libya and Somaliland. The Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire was disbanded. Russia lost Poland, the Baltics and Finland.
The Empires in Europe were disbanded, other than the British in Ireland, which they gave up in 1921.