4 Scenarios for the Coming Collapse of the American Empire

[ProudDad]

Significantly, in 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council admitted for the first time that America's global power was indeed on a declining trajectory. In one of its periodic futuristic reports, Global Trends 2025, the Council cited “the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way, roughly from West to East" and "without precedent in modern history,” as the primary factor in the decline of the “United States' relative strength -- even in the military realm.” Like many in Washington, however, the Council’s analysts anticipated a very long, very soft landing for American global preeminence, and harbored the hope that somehow the U.S. would long “retain unique military capabilities… to project military power globally” for decades to come.

No such luck. Under current projections, the United States will find itself in second place behind China (already the world's second largest economy) in economic output around 2026, and behind India by 2050. Similarly, Chinese innovation is on a trajectory toward world leadership in applied science and military technology sometime between 2020 and 2030, just as America's current supply of brilliant scientists and engineers retires, without adequate replacement by an ill-educated younger generation.

By 2020, according to current plans, the Pentagon will throw a military Hail Mary pass for a dying empire. It will launch a lethal triple canopy of advanced aerospace robotics that represents Washington's last best hope of retaining global power despite its waning economic influence. By that year, however, China's global network of communications satellites, backed by the world's most powerful supercomputers, will also be fully operational, providing Beijing with an independent platform for the weaponization of space and a powerful communications system for missile- or cyber-strikes into every quadrant of the globe.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149080

[ProudDad]

1. More...

Viewed historically, the question is not whether the United States will lose its unchallenged global power, but just how precipitous and wrenching the decline will be. In place of Washington's wishful thinking, let’s use the National Intelligence Council's own futuristic methodology to suggest four realistic scenarios for how, whether with a bang or a whimper, U.S. global power could reach its end in the 2020s (along with four accompanying assessments of just where we are today). The future scenarios include: economic decline, oil shock, military misadventure, and World War III. While these are hardly the only possibilities when it comes to American decline or even collapse, they offer a window into an onrushing future.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149080

[lapislzi]

2. OK, lying down on the train tracks now.

Ye gods. Talk about bleak.

[ProudDad]

3. Naw, this is GOOD news

Who wants to live in the Imperial belly of the beast...?

[BrklynLiberal]

6. I tend to agree with your point of view

Perhaps if the US stops trying to rule the rest of the world, we can devote some time, money and energy to taking care of our own citizens..

A drastic reduction of the "defense" budget would not be the worst thing in the world..

[Strelnikov_]

4. Not going to be any Empires

China and India have too many looming problems.

We are probably moving into an era similar to the beginning of the 20th century. One with a number of powers. The U.S. is already looking a lot like the British Empire, in that we can project power anywhere on the globe, but have limited ability to resist any serious challenges.

Hopefully we can bypass the Somme and Passchendaele milestones.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. The 'USA First &BEST!" repukes will have cerebral hemorrhages...

[lsewpershad]

7. America downfall

is going to come from within. The poor, lower class, unemployed and the dying middle class will become so frustrated that the very survival of millions in America will force a revolution from within. The sad thing is that because of the repukes and the entrenched oligarchy the revolution might have to be voilent. What a shame.