The United States won't stay the super power it is forever. History has shown that every super power after a period of time will eventually take a back seat to a new more powerful country. For example Great Britain was a great and powerful country (i'm not saying its not now, but back then it was what the US is today) during the years after the end of the Napoleonic wars, but their reign ended after WWI when they had to take a back seat to the US. France would be another example of this cycle which has kept repeating itself. I personally think the US will decrease in power as the years progress until they are like everyone else, just another country. I just wanted to hear what some other people thought about this subject.
They say nothing lasts forever- And it's easy to remark that American pre-eminence is transitory. It would require some more care to specifically discuss present trends and their implications, and to examine near-term reasons for doubting long continuity of American economic and political dominance. For examples: -US Trade Deficit -Foreign Investment/Divestment in US Economy -Petroleum Trading Currencies -International Goodwill / Geopolitical Trends -Situational Awareness of American Public -Quality of Leadership / Prospects thereof That the US is highly dependent in many ways on foreign trade, foreign investment, foreign energy, foreign use of American currency, positive foreign attitudes toward doing business with Americans (as opposed to doing buisiness with other emerging and consolidating economies) all present problems, provided US foreign and economic policy continue to place this country at odds with the rest of the world. A discussion of these or other specific factors would be more substantive than simply stating that America will come to an end: So will the sun. You can find innumerable threads and posts around here, casting general and thinly-substantiated statements like water-logged old bait into a still pond. A precious few meaningfully grapple with the real issues, and provoke engaged and informed discussion. Those are the ones that make this forum worthwhile IMO. If there's a specific aspect that interests you, I'm in. So welcome to Sciforums, Da Vinci.
The UK was at its most powerful at the end of WWI actually. It was not until WWII that we lost hyperpower status and starting falling to bits. You could argue that the US attained naval parity with us before WWII but that's not exactly much to go on.
After WWI the UK became to decline dramatically due to the war debt that was due to the US. The US became the new most powerful country. Also they became to decline because they began to lose their colonies. After WWII the UK became economically to decline because the other countries were allowed to catch up to them because of the war.
At the end of WWI the UK gained posession of most of the Ottoman Empire's land in africa and the Middle East and also Germany's colonies in (I think) africa and the Pacific.... That was when it was at its peak, trust me, it's a widely accepted fact. It wasn't until just before WWII and all that Washington Treaty stuff that the US began to measure up.
British war debt to the US after the Great War? I don't understand that part. I think GFS described the interbellum British situation better. I agree that the world wars did propel the USA to present heights, especially WWII. Loss of colonies is an interesting parallel. We Americans have had many resource-rich client states, including Iran and Iraq. It does seem to me that we are losing client-states faster than we are gaining new ones- that "regime change" has hardly ever worked in our favor, and that it is increasingly likely in Arabia.
During the Great War the US poured money (close to $10 billion lent by the US government) to the allies so they could buy money and munitions (mostly in the US). In the years after the War ended the US demanded payments of the debt owed by the allies. Dawes Plan came out of this situation because France, Belgium, and Britain said they couldnt pay the debts unless they collected reparations from Germany. Through the plan being instituted in Germany the flow of reparations to the allies was assured. I rambled a bit but you get the idea.
Technology is the key to future power and both China and India, with their gigantic reserves of manpower, know it. By the time my young nieces and nephews have reached adulthood, world dominance will have tipped eastwards drastically. Both nations are growing their economies at unstoppable speeds, and between them they'll contribute more of the world's GDP than the US does now. Just as the soviets were only ever 2-3 years behind the US in tech during the Cold War, so too will India and China be in all fields, and possibly actually ahead in non-armament ones, especially India, with it's middle-class of 300 million, more IT graduates than the US and EC combined and a nearly equal number of English speakers. The 21st Century will be governed not by the politics of the US and Russia, but by those of India and China. The US will probably never 'fall' - too much to lose - but it will go the same way this century the UK did in the last century. Jaybee.
Sure, in the very long term, nothing lasts forever. But that doesn't mean that any of us will live to see this come to pass.
most definitely, but there does exist people (americans) who believe america will NEVER lose it's superpower status. they claim that india and china are just anomalies that will fall eventually to the military and economic might of the US. *sigh* only time will tell i guess, but history isn't on their side.
Thats the sad part some americans think that the US will be the superpower it is forever and ever, but then again so did France and Britain before they fell behind everyone else.
i guess everyone assumes that to be a superpower one must have military might. at one time that was true but the situation has changed and america changed it by dropping the atomic bomb on japan what will determine superpower status in the future will be economics not military. so with that in mind i can guess that it will be a tossup between china, japan and america china, in my opinion, stands the best chance at becoming the next worlds superpower due to her vast population and land area japan has already gained a spot on the worlds dominate list
To be a superpower today, U should be able to sell lot and lots of things out of your country. It will be real fun if Russia adopts EURO. BTW how does US feel about the United Might of Europe, its just a matter of time and some sparks somewhere, before the Titans Lock their horns.
I agree China is bound to be the next superpower. They already have the second largest economy (only behind the US). Give them a decade or so and they'll be the superpower.
Now we're getting into some more near-term issues. Partly because Americans are generally self-assured about our national status, and because we may be sore losers, "the Fall" could be abrupt, unpleasant, and even imminent. Looking at the arc of empires through history, the rises and falls have been lofty, but increasingly compressed in time. I suspect this is due to the increasing portability of information and knowledge. Once it's generally realized that a paradigm has shifted, change follows with ever-increasing haste. The global image of the USA has been radically changing lately. That image influences the international desire to do business with us, and to do most business with our currency- Which is very thin ice for our particular type of empire.
Although a bit dated I like the book snow crash. The future could be a lot different than we imagine. In the book there is a small area (say 20 miles or so) located in the middle of America with a sign which reads "You are now Entering the United States of America". The rest of America has been "privatized" and no longer part of the USA, for example a sizable area of Hong Kong located in LA. The future may not hinge on countries as we know it, but perhaps an amalgamation of countries and multinational corporations? Michael
Personally I consider Americans as Dangerous after 9/11 conspiracy, so there no way I am entering USA in near future.
One major difference between the American Empire and previous examples is that of the size and political makeup of the United States. Japan, France, Rome, Austria-Hungary and Britain were all relatively small and had a single political class ruling the roost. The United States is enormous, and more importantly has fifty functional governmental organizations capable of managing civic affairs. Instead of a sudden plunge off the cliff into a third-world existence, imagine a slow but accelerating unraveling of the federal - corporate ruling body. If the economic and political factors continue to worsen, and the federal government continues to demonstrate near-total incompetence, I can imagine a near future where certain states implement a de facto secession. Pick a state - Maine for example, or Montana. Someday soon they may look at their balance books and decide that doing business with Washington is no longer in their best interests. All a state really has to do is stop accepting federal funds disbursement, appropriate all federal taxes for the state's use and recall their national guard from whatever South Asian hellhole they are stuck in. What is Washington gonna do about that? Arrest the governor? Once a few states decide to cut the ties, the federal government would wither very quickly. You'd end up with fifty independent states, loosely organized into regional confederacies (!), conducting their own foreign relations with adjacent nations. It would be a more or less declawed U.S. - very similar to the Russian Federation, and probably the safest outcome in the long run.
