The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (2010)

The ridiculous thing is that there&#x27;s <i>no reason</i> America has to be in decline right now except hubris. The idea that military superiority is the end-all-be-all of power, the idea that every American deserves to be richer than than the average Chinese, etc. We still have amazing natural resources and an amazing entrepreneurial can-do cultural attitude.<p>The problem is too many resources devoted to skimming the cream at the top of the economy, decade after decade of ill-advised military waste, too much easy money in finance, too gullible of a pacified electorate ready and willing to vote against their interests at the siren song of two parties who claim to represent their values, but spend 95% of their time fundraising and earning it from the private interests who expect their ear.<p>If as a country we got back to the basics of hard work and innovation and spent less time hand-wringing over our safety and global dominance, and making sure that the GDP is growing at all costs, then I think we&#x27;d be well positioned for the coming centuries of increased parity between countries. Insistence that we have to maintain the post-WWII imbalance that America enjoyed due entirely to a accidental confluence of events is foolhardy and will lead to bad decisions.

While I cant say whether this it right or wrong, I find these are articles to be extremely rigid in their determining facts. Just like in the professional world there is a massive difference between becoming an industry player and an extremely dominant company. Through a tech lense, just because snapchat is growing faster than facebook, does not make snapchat Facebook in 2020. The underscoring of the civil growing pains of wealth inequity, western influence amongst consumption, civil unrest and basic quality of life problems (India and China) are never taken into account. Its always, their economy is expanding so given enough time they will win.<p>In a worse case scenario I see a melding of eastern and western ideals set up against a terrible widening of the wealth inequity. The big sharp edge of a connected economy is that people with power and information asyemtry can now use global communication to economically conquer areas much larger than their immediate reach (list it used to be). The more likely scenario here is a world reset, than a post-American future.

This article does not mention climate change, salinization, loss of glaciers (to feed rivers) contamination of soil and groundwater (from mining or maybe all the fracking the US has been doing) over-irrigation. These and others are real threats the US faces and will result in reduced fresh water and food.

One reason we are in decline is that for better or worse, our own people are a bit too mercenary for our own good. We have built giant multi-billion dollar corporations, which in theory should make us incredibly more wealthy and powerful, but they are no longer American companies, they are global entities that operate in a multitude of countries.<p>The jobs and profit don&#x27;t necessarily stay in the USA either. In many cases the best place to hire workers or produce goods or services is not the USA. There are thousands or millions of talented people elsewhere who can do it better for cheaper and the profit that happens off of the difference is not going to come back to the USA.<p>If you think in terms of the &quot;global&quot; economy, there is no particular reason why the USA would have to stay #1 forever. Without significant effort, it is almost impossible to imagine how America stays on top for the same reasons that it is hard to believe that either Portugal or Great Britain could maintain such large empires from such tiny countries with limited resources.<p>I don&#x27;t think USA goes from #1 to #50 overnight, but dropping to #3 or #5 seems plausible.

The article is giving me a 502, so I&#x27;ll just say this:<p>I think the American decline is a lot like the iPad market share.<p>Most nations today are peaceful market economies who believe in individual rights and trading internationally. As a result, the U.S. is becoming less &quot;indispensable&quot;. Is that something to fear, lament...or to celebrate?<p>As a U.S. citizen I&#x27;m bullish on the future.

Note: Published December 5, 2010.

Most empires end through overreach. The tiny nuggets at the center of the Roman, Mongol, Ottoman, British, Austrian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German and Japanese empires couldn&#x27;t maintain the many nationalities they lorded over. So they collapsed. The Soviets lasted a long time, despite their worthless, murderous government, simply because the Russians had a huge core in the center.<p>The American empire received its death blow in 1965. The barbarians were not at the gates. There were no gates. The barbarians were invited, by the millions and millions, from hundreds or thousands of miles away, at the bequest of the American elites, to conquer a continent at no risk to themselves. That is what historians--probably Chinese historians--will write about decades from now about America...in mystified, contemptuous marvel at American stupidity.

Yes, America will decline, yet it&#x27;ll survive, the only thing that will ever Kill America, is the unrest of it&#x27;s people, and as long as consumerism keeps everyone complacent and enslaved, people won&#x27;t rise up, to enact any real change.<p>It&#x27;s a fact that short of nuclear war(global suicide), nobody can invade&#x2F;destroy America militarily, but our presence worldwide, will, and SHOULD end. We need to go back to being neutral and not giving a shit about world affairs, -- people in America are starving, yet we spend trillions to police other countries. -- Some protectionism, and pull-back on military spending would make for a stronger, more private America.<p>Personally, I&#x27;m all for a contracting America, that stops worrying about global affairs, and worries more about feeding, clothing, and putting everyone to work, and combatting poverty at home.<p>We have real problems here in America such as : A failing war on drugs, Healthcare issues, Education, NSA&#x2F;Security scandals, Poverty&#x2F;Unemployment, Securing our borders&#x2F;ports of entry, Mental Health(school shootings, etc..), Bloated government spending -- gov&#x27;t should not be allowed to spend more than they bring in via taxes, period - end of discussion.<p>I say AMEN to the end of America&#x27;s world domination, and Hello to the era of &quot;let&#x27;s take care of our own&quot;.

&gt; Between 1973 and 2007, oil imports have risen from 36% of energy consumed in the U.S. to 66%.<p>It&#x27;s interesting they didn&#x27;t cite figures from 2007 to 2013 yet they link to them. From their EIA link, it appears we import about as many barrels per month as we did in 1973.

I&#x27;m shocked that CBS would publish such a sober and realistic assessment of how damaging the wars of the past decade have been, and how horrifying the end of the petrodollar will be.

War will not happen between the US and China (2 economies which are inexorably intertwined) for no other reason than it will be exceedingly bad for business.

People act like their self-identity were dependent on everlasting American super-hegemony. Then trolls like this author come around and push your buttons to make themselves feel important. This author and his stories of futuristic lethal space robot battles mean what to whom? We&#x27;re all going to be killed by China&#x27;s space lasers and there&#x27;s nothing to be done of it? Ok great thanks. Not being #1 means absolutely nothing to me. Lots of fine countries in this world do just fine not being #1.

No one can predict the future, and this is sensationalism and speculation, not reasoned journalism.<p>Let&#x27;s talk about the &quot;fall&quot; of the UK. The British have universal healthcare and London is a leading global city. The biggest things that can be said for bad about the UK are (1) that London is extremely expensive, and (2) that the weather sucks. (1) is true but hardly seems to have anything to do with global decline; (2) is easy enough to deal with when you have $50 airfares to Spain and Italy and 5 weeks of vacation required by law.<p>So... is that what &quot;decline&quot; looks like? It doesn&#x27;t sound so bad.<p>The UK certainly did have a period of economic privation that was longer than ours. Ours fit neatly between a stock market crash (1929) and the end of a war (1945) while theirs lingered on for about 15 years longer. That wasn&#x27;t because the British Empire fell. That was because Britain got thoroughly devastated by Nazi bombing, while we lost one military base in Hawaii. Even the countries that &quot;won&quot; World Wars I and II mostly lost, economically speaking.<p>Sure, the American Empire is toast. It&#x27;s already fading in importance, and the economic and cultural malaise that OP argues come along with imperial collapse are already happening. In fact, the pattern of ignominious military misadventure didn&#x27;t start in 2003 with Iraq; the war in Vietnam was worse. Does this mean that we&#x27;re headed for economic collapse or World War III? No. Sure, those things could happen. I don&#x27;t see them as especially likely.<p>The American Empire is unwinding because nation-states themselves are becoming less relevant. The global elite (which includes many highly wealthy Americans, but has no allegiance to any specific country or ideology) has pushed aside the national elites. They don&#x27;t matter anymore, except for ceremonial purposes. The rise of the global elite (the WEF fuckheads) isn&#x27;t a good thing. For all of its flaws, the WASP aristocracy was a hell of a lot more virtuous and pro-democratic (and, more to the point, it gave a shit what happened to the U.S.) than the new elite of Russian blatnoy-oligarchs and the oil sheikhs from countries where it&#x27;s legal to fuck a 9-year-old (if you&#x27;re married to her). Where this global elite is headed, and what the rest of us in the 99.99% will have to do with or to them is another discussion, and I don&#x27;t care to have it...<p>This idea that the U.S. is destined for economic ruin, however, has no basis. Sure, there are some nasty problems we&#x27;re going to face, nationally and globally. But there has never been a time in history when that wasn&#x27;t the case.

This is my opinion. The world is built on American financial institutions such as World Bank, World Trade Organization. These entities ensure American dominance when it comes to economic power. China maybe taking the 2nd spot, but that&#x27;s where it ends. The stage is always rigged so that United States prevails. The rules change in favor of United States, at the whim of it&#x27;s administration.<p>Then comes the military power. No other country has had as much experience as the united states. Air superiority still remains to be the most essential battlefield in any war. Those who control the skies determine where their territories end. The United States by far has a great deal of experience in this field and it&#x27;s spending on military hardware eclipses the entire world by many times.<p>The perfect empire is the one we can&#x27;t see, and that is the empire of US dollar. As long as we depend on oil for energy output, so will the world&#x27;s dependence on American dollar.