Will the United States Ever Fall?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by FreeMason, Jan 1, 2005.

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Will the United States ever fall?

  1. Yes

    21 vote(s)
    67.7%
  2. No

    10 vote(s)
    32.3%
  1. FreeMason Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    75
    I say no, why?

    First, it is easy for us to say "yes" of course it will, every nation or empire before us has fallen, the Egyptians, the Athenians, the Romans, the French, the British. All have succumbed to the tests of time.

    Why do I say no?

    Times have changed, to a level that is hard for us to grasp.

    Nuclear Weapons.

    No nation with Nuclear Weapons can ever truly fall, and depending on how "far they will go", will never fall. Russia's only current crisis is secession of its Republics (Chechniya currently trying to bail-out). But, if Russia wanted at all costs to put that Republic in its place, and preserve their territorial boundaries, can solve that problem area with one SATAN-18.

    So, I conclude that the only way any nuclear nation will fall, is from either its own peoples' desires to depart whatever "union" that nation was, or in some firery disaster of a nuclear holocaust that would cripple the nation's ability to maintain a nuclear posture.

    The latter seems never going to happen, we may suffer nuclear attacks such as a mini-nuke in New York (that'd blow-up about a couple city blocks), but I doubt full scale Nuclear War (which is what it would take to dislodge our nuclear posture) would ever happen.

    So long as those nuclear weapons exist, the government in control of them, can control the people to such an extent that the nation can theoretically exist indefinately.

    Now, if it is internal threats (such as people wanting to secede) that are casuing the problem, the nation that survives would probably be extremely devestated, 3rd world and hanging on by its nukes alone (having little real power within its borders).

    But America does have a political system such that secessionsts and anarchists probably would never reign again (though I wish we were more of the former Union), so our largest threat is the change of the global situation.

    Globally, we can always remain a force, regardless if our economy dwindles. It is only a matter of willingness.

    Most likely, I would imagine, the US will return to a back-seat economically someday, and we will be merely existing, but never threatend to be forced into any sort of territorial surrendering or such due to the Nukes.

    Anyway, that's my views on it.

    Main point is, I think we need to view things differently in the world stage, because nations like Russia and the US are staying till the end of time. The quality of living may change, but these governments will always have a measure of force to project into the world arena.

    This is providing that a sophisticated ICBM system can be maintained, but if North Korea can approach such technology with no resources, both Russia and USA can manage this with-out the concent or support of their people.
     
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  3. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,049
    freemason war is only one way a nation could fall. What about large asteriod, ice age, economic colaps, curption, climate change, neculear acident, runing out of fuel? and thats just a few examples off the top of my head

    and if you want to go the war way what about other countrys weaponry advances or just plan world assult (like germany fell) economic sations

    we can never know what will happen and all things WILL end
     
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  5. FreeMason Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    75
    Well I am ignoring supra-natural disasters that would more or less cripple the world. The Economic collapse I covered, note that I did not really paint that the society had to remain decent, or even "humane", just that the actual raw government itself, the structure carrying the name, somehow is surviving, holding on to something.

    I believe that Nuclear Weapons give a nation the ability to be unchanging and stoic, an option until now did not exist. We still believe that time moves all things, but with nuclear weapons, that's undoubtedly so.

    Now I think the US will project itself far longer than some oppressive totalitarian nuclear stronghold, because the people will want it to continue, and the US will be able to defend itself absolutely. Rome fell because the people did not consider themselves Romans and so did not defend parts of the Empire they felt no interest in defending, leaving them divided.

    We don't need to care about that, because conventional war is out the window. We'd need a conventional force to project power, but we don't need it for defense.

    As far as Fuel is concerned, there's plenty of that, if not nuclear then geothermal//hydro-electric//wind//solar. Our most limited resources is soil, but the Mississippi floods regularly enough to replenish a good deal of it.

    Anyway, World assault can not crack a "nuclear fortress", which after consideration (studying this is fun heh, you should try it really, it's so different than what we are taught is the real world...) there are only two Nuclear Fortresses.

    What are they?

    Well, it is a nation that for all intents and purposes, can survive a full scale Nuclear war.

    What is survival?

    Maintaining nuclear capability after subduing your enemy.

    Now, Nuclear War will not whipe all life from the face of the earth, in most cases it won't even whipe life from the face of one city, this is why Counter Cost strategy is largely ignored except for China (which has no strategic targets with which to subdue)

    Russia and US however, have many hardened facilities that can be attacked and destroyed, and the winner is whoever destroy's the other's Nuclear Assets and maintains enough of their own to threaten a counter-cost attack (which would be to nuke their civilian populations).

    Now anyway, the reason I mention that is because it shows the nature of these beasts.

    The US does NOT show it very well, it hides it very well ... this is because the people are free, and do their own thing, and the policies of the Government are largely unscrutinized.

    However, the Soviet Union, gave a great deal of insite to the Nuclear Beast, and how far it CAN go, not how far it WILL.

    The Soviet Union could have held their Empire together, but they didn't want to, even Gorbechev was tired, he just gave-up from pressure at the top.

    In 1988, the Soviet Union published a secret doctrine within its Military leadership that they could WIN a Nuclear War with the United States, that at most it would only cost 20 million of their lives, and that this is acceptable as shown by the Great Patriotic War and the sacrifices made there.

    So anyway, natural events are stronger than man (and unreasonable), but man is reasonable and a lot can come from a "preparation to use force", and that is why I don't see any human threat to any nation that wishes to remain the way it is, for all time.

    North Korea seems to be fitting that mold, if they get a large ICBM arsenal, they'll out last everyone, because they have the internal fortitude (millions of brainwashed individuals), they have the ability to "resocialize" anyone, they are so good they convinced Americans to join their side during the Korean war (poor bastards are still stuck over there). And they are nutty enough to never want to change.

    Normal people will still probably accept change, which will eventually bring down any nation. But, I think what we call America, would still survive, as a little more is needed than change, you need a force to knock over the weakend structure of what was previously established, and with Nukes, it won't come from outside unless by willingness of the people inside...(apathy counts...)
     
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  7. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,049
    if your saying that some remnant of the US will suvive that is probably true. Apart from the mythologicl adlantians almost all ex superpowers exist in some form. Rome still exists, eygipt, england, ect. that doesnt mean that in anyway that there way of life in any form still exists. yes for the brits it does but not for the romans. time washes away many things
     
  8. Red Devil Born Again Athiest Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,996
    United implies together. I do not think that much of what can be called United States is actually that. It won't be in the next century, but it will happen when the whole planet gets off its arse and demolishes religion and borders and we become what we need to become, a world united with a single government.
     
  9. travis Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    160
    America is already halfway there. Observe the world around you can you deny that world government has been sneaking up on us? This is not a coincidence. The elite members of Bilderburgers, Trilateral Commission, CFR and PNAC have been engineering this behind the scenes. Welcome to the New World Odor.
     
  10. nirakar ( i ^ i ) Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,383
    For the purpose of the poll question please define "the United States", "ever", and "fall".

    The USA is a Democracy with nuclear weapons and a highly specialized labor force.

    Many democracies have fallen. Most of the democracies that fell were destroyed by domestic forces. During the last hundred years the greatest threat to the national security of the world's peoples has been in this order, 1: their own nation's military, 2: their own intelligence agencies/ FBI equivalents /secret police and regular police, 3: their own aristocracy, 4: domestic tribalism, racism and religious hate, and cultural/linguistic hate, 5: the bad influence of multinational corporations on the first three groups, politicians, and on the foreign policy apparatus of nations like the USA, 7: Hitler, 8: the foreign policy apparatus of the United States and the bad influence that it has on the first three groups, politicians and the foreign policy apparatus of other nations, 9: the foreign policy apparatus of the Soviet Union, 10: every thing else combined.

    I visited Bosnia in 1986. I had no clue that the tensions in Yugoslavia were more intense than the current tensions between Bush supporters and Bush opponents in the USA today. Living overseas left me feeling that all peoples are basically very similar. It seems like every nation has it's version of bleeding heart socialist types, it's traditionalist fundamentalist types, it's small government libertarian types and it's power elite imitating groupies. We Americans would be naive if we thought that there was something special about us that made it impossible for us to lose our democracy. Just before the Chileans lost their democracy the Chileans believed that they were special and not like the banana republics that lose their democracies.

    General Butler testified bore congress in 1934 that their had been an attempt to gain his support for a coup in 1933. http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/Butler.html

    Nuclear weapons offer no protection from domestic political madness.


    Empires consume vast sums of money. Any nation that fails to extract more money from it's empire than the empire costs will fall. America is in a bind because our empire is organized in the name of peace, justice and liberty which makes it necessary to not be observed using force to extract the money to pay for the empire. I don't think this can be done. I don't know that America can count on the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese and Saudis to keep on buying the bonds that America needs to sell to keep the empire afloat.

    Letting the American empire fall does not mean that the United States falls. The greater risk is that the Neocons and the corporate welfare state will cause the collapse of the USA by attempting to refuse to allow the American empire to fall even when the empire is not paying for itself.

    If our political leaders ever participate in the looting of the treasury, (which is normal) they would be under great pressure to end the democracy if they believed that a party that would prosecute them for their crimes was about to win elections. When non Democratic forces take over a government it is usually only a matter of decades or centuries before their power struggles result in the break up of the nation into smaller nations.

    We have not seen the last of plague, pestilence and famine. Drug resistant TB and AIDS and Mad Cow disease are ominous indications that plague has unlimited potential in a six billion person global village.

    Global warming and the move to agricultural mono-cultures are wild cards that threaten sustainability.


    America can not defend itself from biological terrorism. America can not defend itself from a nuclear bomb in the form of a remote control submarine guided from a yacht, cargo ship or fishing vessel. Our best defense against terrorism is to not motivate it.

    Where are we going with immigration? When will America be overpopulated?

    The good thing about a highly specialized labor force is that it is very efficient because each individual task has a worker who has the right tools, training and experience to accomplish that task extremely efficiently. The bad thing about a highly specialized labor force is that if the economic social structures within which we work and trade ever break down, then highly specialized people become useless helpless people. Stone age people knew how to live off the land but we don't. Must of us do not even know how to fix a car or toaster or build a generator or how to mill lumber. In the worst case scenario, in which a number of problems for America come to a head at the same time, everything could spin out of control and America could collapse. If tax collection collapses the government collapses and thugs will take what they want by force. Farmers would not farm because there would be no one to pay for the crop and thugs would steal the crop anyway. If order could not be reestablished and our nuclear power plants were abandoned would they create further disaster?

    America most certainly can fail. The only path which has any potential to permanently banish the eventual fall of America is if the whole human species becomes one team working for the future of the species rather than a collection of small groups as willing to benefit from stealing from each other as they are willing to benefit from their own contributions to the safety prosperity and happiness of the species.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2005
  11. vslayer Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,969
    a war cannot be won aginste them, because they just drop a nuke and its over, a war with no clear enemy, no home country, and no base of operations is the only way to beat them, how can they stop people in the country planting bombs and walking away, the cant drop a bomb for fear of their own saftey
     
  12. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

    Messages:
    24,066
    I cannot really believe that the soviet union gave up more than half their empire because they just wanted to do so. It isn't really fresh on my mind anymore, but if I remember correctly things were heating up in Eastern Europe. The Soviet union was on the brink of economic collapse.

    If this is true than the soviet union is an example of an nuclear power which 'nation' collapsed. I think losing half your territory and influence could qualify as collapse of a nation or regime or empire...whatever you want to call it.
     
  13. tablariddim forexU2 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,795
    When a country fails economically then so does its power whither. The USA will fall eventually; it's well perceived by all, that China and the Far East will become the new moneybrokers of the world given a few generations.

    For a time, we'll see 3 super powers, more or less on an equal footing; that is, USA, Europe (with ex Soviet Bloc) and China (with a partnership of other Far East countries), but eventually, as labour costs in the Far East begin to rise, then the rest of the world will suffer the consequences, as, on top of being uncompetitive with the East, everything begins to get horrendously expensive. By the time this happens of course, China will have already transformed into a very rich and powerful nation and USA's power will be a long distant memory.
     
  14. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

    Messages:
    24,066
    Hmmm...could it be that the US already reached the final phase of its existence as a superpower. A phase that is characterized not by economical domination, but by military domination. I am not saying that the distinction is black and white, but that there is a trend towards a shift in the balance of economical/technological/military power.
     
  15. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,232
    Much of the content your posts has been opinion. Nothing wrong with that. Your 'factual' content is another matter. Others have pinpointed some of your errors. Here is another:
    Nonsense. The great strength of the Romans and the Roman Empire was that they created a sense of identity throughout the Empire. Soldiers from the corners of the Empire gained citizenship by serving.
    When the legions left Britain it was not the will of the British, but to defend other parts of the Empire under attack from barbarian hordes. The British maintained a Roman lifestyle until overwhelmed by invasion.
     
  16. android nothing human inside Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,104
    Oversimplification is rampant on Internet boards

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    The Roman empire brought many good things to many lands. However, ultimately, it was economic incentive that drove non-Romans to fight for it, and when they became wealthy enough they refused to defend it. At that point, however, even Romans were refusing to defend it, because they were busy with egalitarian philosophies and Christianity.
     
  17. android nothing human inside Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,104
    I agree. This final phase is characterized by lack of consensus in all areas: values, economics, philosophy, religion, race and art.
     
  18. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,232
    Well, there's oversimplification (guilty) and there's wrong (innocent).
     
  19. Preacher_X Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    757
    i dont fully understand what you mean by the word "fall"

    yes America will lose its economic, milatry and political superiority but the nation, the people and the culture will still be there.

    Another thing, is America is a democracy so it does have to listen to people. and that means it power will always be limited. if 9-11 didnt happen then it would be hard for America to invade Iraq because of public opinion even though it has the tanks, missiles and soldiers to do so.

    another example is how America is fighting in Iraq. if America wanted it could blow the crap out of Iraq and turn anywhere with resistence into a destroyed city and inturn save America a lot of money and their own deaths the US has the capability, easily but it cant becasue of the whole democracy and freedom thing.
    Could bush ever get rid of people who didnt support him like Sadam did to the Kurds??

    its not that America does not commit terrible crimes, which it DOES but under the new face of spreading democracy, using economic might and the war on terror aswell as bribes, puppet govermants, spreading fear, the media and by its power America can act like a colonial state which i believe it is.

    one thing that will happen to America very soon is that there will become new powers or superpowers and although it may or may no create another cold war it will chage things.

    the world could be polorised again, with the next powers being China? India? Russia again? who knows?

    America is now in a very powerful position becasue it is the only superpower so its decsions will go unchallenged.

    if this was 15 or 20 years ago America could not be able to iunvade Iraq like it has now. if America wanted to invade iraq then Russia would balance it out by supporting Iraq.

    that was the way America was defeated in Vietnam and Russia in Afghanistan. two superpowers humilated and defeated by peasents.

    and that was the way the cold war worked, neither super power faced each other directly and were to scared to do so becasue of the outcome (even in the Cuban missile crisis for example, America could not be to direct)

    in the cold war Russia couldnt just go about invading this country or building this or supporting this or that in some other country as America would always counteract what Russia did and vise versa.

    but now America is the only superpower and can bully who she wants.

    times will change though, and this has started already. China is already starting to take what the US says less and less seriously

    so in that way the US will fall.
     
  20. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,502
    One can only hope.
    In any case, you should be more specific. Fall in what way? The only aspect in which the US is superior to all other nations is in the economic. The US lags far behind all other nations in every other meaningful respects.
     
  21. path Militant wiseguy Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,314
    Every empire or state that has fallen in the past has had some form of "leg up" on other states, often some type of military advancement. In the end it was never enough to maintain power indefinately in the words of Virgil I believe "the sinews of power are infinite money" and the loss of revenues to other parts of the globe cannot be stemmed by weapons, even nuclear ones. Ironically it is the US itself that shapes it's own demise, I don't know when it will happen but the US will one day fall from being the primary power in the world, like it or no.
     
  22. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,232
    Do we have any bona fide philosophers/historians/political scientists who would like to comment on the relevance of Spengler's Decline of the West to this discussion.
    http://www.duke.edu/~aparks/Spengler.html
     
  23. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,502
    I couldn't agree more with Spengler, minus the Destiny angle. There's no doubt that contemporary Western culture is in decline; ours is a decadent society, ripe for a fall. The question is, what comes next?, and who will rise?
     

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