When the only question is how precipitous the empire's fall will be, it's not looking good, regardless.

That is always the only question.

In an empire in decline, sure.

All empires decline.

Rome will never fall! How can it? It has only ever grown more powerful.

But not all are IN decline..

>The US is a huge economy with a massive military infrastructure.

Yeah, because famously neither Rome nor Spain nor England had massive military infrastructures for their times.

The fall of Rome took like 400 years...

Life moves much faster now.

...and breaks things.

Well over 1000 years of you consider the Byzantine Empire to be Roman, and I think you should.

Hopefully. With that said, when a country makes too many poor decisions, independently or relative to other countries, it'll eventually bite them in the butt.

It is fading though, we are only arguing about the magnitude of its velocity and acceleration at this point.

Is it though? Dollar is appreciating in times of turmoil? And what’s the alternative - the all talk Europeans?

Presumably China given OPs comments.

It’s going to be a multi-polar world. The US will continue to be among the top powers for decades to come. We’re simply exiting an unusual period where China isn’t leading/among the leading pack of countries.

The rate of US relative decline will be set by our policy decisions and cohesion. As we are apparently electing malicious narcissists with dementia to our highest office, a more precipitous decline seems reasonable

I think what you will see is what happens in the body when it becomes starved - it will start eating itself.

We have already begun to see this. The middle class is no longer expanding, nor is the poor (by meaningful terms). Worse, the poorest class - largely made up from immigrants - legal or otherwise - are being driven away.

Life in the US has been relatively comfortable for a few generations now. So current healthy (age-speaking, not fitness) generations have no idea how to revolt. Ironically, we may see change come from the southerners with guns who eventually decided they had been deceived by the people they voted for. After all, both sides cowered on Jan 6. Just imagine if "representing your constituents" was a do or die scenario. The US is mostly far from that scenario if a supreme leader is not directing the masses.

Unfortunately, as with many other fallen empires, I think it will take a LONG time for things to recover. The idealistic principles which the US claimed to be founded upon are largely not present now - the freedom from oppression, the freedom of/from religion, and the concept of fair representation.

> we may see change come from the southerners with guns who eventually decided they had been deceived by the people they voted for.

er... last time southerners with guns revolted, it didn't exactly end well... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

> As we are apparently electing malicious narcissists with dementia to our highest office, a more precipitous decline seems reasonable

To be fair, the current political dysfunction can probably largely be reduced by switching the electoral system from 'first past the post' + electoral college to something like ranked choice or proportional representation.

> In political science, Duverger's law holds that in political systems with single-member districts and the first-past-the-post voting system, as in, for example, the United States and United Kingdom, only two powerful political parties tend to control power.

> By contrast, in countries with proportional representation or two-round elections, such as France, Sweden, New Zealand or Spain, there is no two-party duopoly on power. There are usually more than two significant political parties.

and that way the presidential election does reflect "either the will of the Democratic Party elite or the will of the Republican Party elite" (ie, the extremes of the two main parties), but something closer to the will of the people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

Alternative to what?

I prefer talk to bombs. In that way Europe has more in common with China- wars ar just too messy and expensive.

I may be misinterpreting your comment, so forgive me if I am.

When Trump began the trade wars (tariffs), it caused many countries to reconsider their alliances and operations. What you can see is a great shift away from the USD in many areas. This is not temporary, or at least not short-term.

Once trade alliances are formed between parties that exclude the US, those groups seek financial paths which are more stable and unrelated to the volatile path they previously took.

As for the EU, they have an insane task: trying to provide fairly equal voice to a large number of stakeholders. EU was a very idealistic concept, and I'm surprised it made it this far. But they should not be discounted. They may be slower to react to situations by virtue of their necessary processes, but they will eventually get it.

Europe is wisely waking up and starting to loosen its military dependence on the US. Hopefully they are/will do the same when it comes to medical research since the US has been taken over by anti-vaxxers.

I’m saying this as a non European. I’m an American who is making plans to split my time between the US and Costa Rica (here now) and maybe Panama and would love to see them become close to Europe politically.

> Hopefully they are/will do the same when it comes to medical research since the US has been taken over by anti-vaxxers.

Aren't European companies already very competitive in drug development and Medical devices? Philips practically owns the ultrasound markets globally -- Novo Nordisk, GSK, Bayer, Merck, seem competitive too.

I have no idea. That’s why I was purposefully being wishy washy.

Most people probably said the same thing about the Soviet Union in the 1980s

'How did you go bankrupt?'

'Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.'

1910 The UK is the biggest, most powerful empire the world has ever seen.

1950 The UK is not that or anything like it.

Today. Does anyone really care much about what the UK says or does on the world stage? Ordinary British are better off now than 1910 and it isn't close.

So what you say is obviously true as long you define "quickly."

Much of the UK's decline from 1910 to 1950 was from spending its money funding WW1 and WW2. Hopefully we don't get world wars soon.

Plus the Japanese beating the British so badly all over Southeast Asia. This gave a lot of momentum to independence in Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and eventually India.

Thailand? From whom?

Quite.

The point that its fall is not quick, concedes that it is falling.

A fall that looks completely avoidable given what we have been taught about how the world works.