The End of American Hegemony (Or at Least Global Influence)

[Atheris]

You shouldn't even respond to someone just dropping a wall of links as that is a disingenuous way to debate. It places too much burden on both the responded and onlookers. Plus its doubtful he even understands half of it else he would have just digested it for us instead of posting a wall of links.

Right, like Einstein used to say that a real genius is not just the one capable of understanding higher knowledge, but also possesses the ability to explain it simply to the audience.

Holy shit, holy shit. That reminds me of one of my favorite jokes of all time.

So, Einstein gets into his car, on the way to a lecture at a university. His driver, who looks suspiciously like him, keeps listening to him complain about giving the lecture, before stopping him.

"Listen, Albert. I've known you for 15 years. I know all your theories, read all your books, even spellchecked that last speech you wrote. Let me handle it - we're basically twins!"

Einstein laughs. "Sure, why not?"

When they get to the university, Einstein takes his chauffeur's clothes and the chauffeur's his, and sits in the back. As the chauffeur is giving his speech, a university student raises his hand.

"What is it?"

The student smiles and asks an esoteric question about the formation of anti-matter in space. The chauffeur sighs, straightens his jacket, and says,

"Sir, that question is so easy I'll let my chauffeur answer it for me."

[Picairn]

It's all true though, and from good sources. I'd be surprised if anyone could come up with anything that credibly proved any of it wrong.

Still a disingenous way to debate though, as the heavy burden to verify and cross-check with sources of opposing viewpoints is now placed on the responder (that's me). Long story short, I do not possess an arsenal of sources and I'll have to do research alone without help from others, unlike the Communists of Reddit where Stylan conveniently stole the list of sources from.

Furthermore, the truth is always far more nuanced than a cherry-picked part of it. It is likely that what I wrote will be 2x, 3x as long as Stylan's wall of text.

[Purpelia]

You shouldn't even respond to someone just dropping a wall of links as that is a disingenuous way to debate. It places too much burden on both the responded and onlookers. Plus its doubtful he even understands half of it else he would have just digested it for us instead of posting a wall of links.

It's all true though, and from good sources. I'd be surprised if anyone could come up with anything that credibly proved any of it wrong.

The possibility that what you just said might be true does not change the fact that linkdropping is a disingenuous debating tactic intended to overwhelm the opposing side with data to process and overload them with work for no effort on your side and force them to submit out of exhaustion. If you want to present an argument you have to do so your self and not just drop sources and expect others to do YOUR WORK for you. Failure to do so represents either ill intent or inability on your part. Both of which are damning.

[Picairn]

The possibility that what you just said might be true does not change the fact that linkdropping is a disingenuous debating tactic intended to overwhelm the opposing side with data to process and overload them with work for no effort on your side and force them to submit out of exhaustion. If you want to present an argument you have to do so your self and not just drop sources and expect others to do YOUR WORK for you. Failure to do so represents either ill intent or inability on your part. Both of which are damning.

This. I wonder how Stylan will respond to the fact that he just stole a list from Reddit and drop it here with no effort while forcing me to undergo extensive research and cross-checking. If his intent is to either end the arguments in his favor or force his opponents to make research on their own (read: mental torture and waste of time), he accomplished both.

[Purpelia]

The possibility that what you just said might be true does not change the fact that linkdropping is a disingenuous debating tactic intended to overwhelm the opposing side with data to process and overload them with work for no effort on your side and force them to submit out of exhaustion. If you want to present an argument you have to do so your self and not just drop sources and expect others to do YOUR WORK for you. Failure to do so represents either ill intent or inability on your part. Both of which are damning.

This. I wonder how Stylan will respond to the fact that he just stole a list from Reddit and drop it here with no effort while forcing me to undergo extensive research and cross-checking. If his intent is to either end the arguments in his favor or force his opponents to make research on their own (read: mental torture and waste of time), he accomplished both.

He either won't or he'll try and weasel out of it. That's what cheaters always do when you confront them.

[Bulgar Rouge]

China will eventually replace the US, the trajectory is more or less clear and there aren't many factors that point to American resurgence or geopolitical vitality. The fact that America needs to strong-arm its own European "allies" into specific buying decisions just indicates total desperation.

[Picairn]

He either won't or he'll try and weasel out of it. That's what cheaters always do when you confront them.

It just dawned on me that dropping a wall of sources on the Internet is a textbook example of the infamous Gish-Gallop tactic.

[Nolo gap]

So I'm going to start this by saying, yes, I'm an American, and no, this isn't all Trumps fault. The reason American hegemony and global influence is ending is because it is the natural order of things. No nation stays in its Golden Age for long, and America is seeing the effects of that. Yes, many of Trump's decisions have hastened America's downfall, but to say that this angry, orange man is the cause of all our problems is a lie. It is simply the fact that America never realized that its Golden Age ended a while ago. We have refused to adapt and have relied on the fact that the rest of the world looked at America as its big brother, someone to emulate. Now, the world tries to ignore America as it struggles with it getting its act together. While we basked in our glory, the Old World decided to catch up and surpass us. My hypothesis is that if Trump is reelected, America will collapse in the next few decades. If Trump is not elected, then, depending on the new President's choices, America might yet survive, or at the very least live for another century, but we won't see America be making the world's choices for it.

So, NSG, what do you think?

i agree with this 100%. with what is said. but there's a couple of major details that weren't mentioned.

biggest of these is environment, though culture in the anthropological sense would be the biggest if environment weren't bigger.
a culture of hating (though perhaps not obviously) logic, and rewarding aggressiveness in its place has as its totally predictable outcome, tyranny in one sense of the word or another, and it is this that don panoccio as i feel an apt descriptor to call hall him, is a product and symptom of.

and environment: population * (combustion for transportation + combustion for electrical energy) = accelerated climtalogical and atmospheric compositional drift.

america is just the name of a place, that was inflicted on it less then 3 hundred years ago, a place where people had been living, and yes, far more then just surviving, for at least 13,000 years, and possibly longer.

it is also the name of a government, constructed with some good ideas, but none of them infallible ones.

now we have this biological plague, that is likewise the karma (which is not a judgment nor dependent on judgements being made nor judges to make them) again of hating logic, and rewarding aggressiveness in its place.

the culture of ego is not a biological imperative, but a choice. the statistical sum, of individual choices.
the only thing that has ever stood in the way of universal tyranny, is an impartial and universal consideration and logic in the service of it,
and again this is not an imperative of ideology, biology, belief or any of the rest of it, however some beliefs are misunderstood to imply that it is.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

One country behaving like Bluto, is not any better than two countries behaving like rival Blutos. The world would be better without superpowers - something more like "all countries are created equal".

[Stellar Colonies]

Complete collapse is unlikely, and the US is just too large to become completely irrelevant,

In 1900 you could have said the same about the British Empire. Now a days they even failed to hold onto Ireland which is in their back yard.

The British Empire was comprised of an island 'country' smaller than California at the center of an imperial system comprised of distinct countries and colonies scattered across the world, many of which were rather different. That's much looser and broke apart more easily than the US, a single and somewhat unified country, would.

A post-superpower US would probably still be a great power, based on its size and geographical position between two large oceans. Not so much the UK, it's a small island nation without the British Empire and Commonwealth to bolster it.

[Purpelia]

In 1900 you could have said the same about the British Empire. Now a days they even failed to hold onto Ireland which is in their back yard.

The British Empire was comprised of an island 'country' smaller than California at the center of an imperial system comprised of distinct countries and colonies scattered across the world, many of which were rather different. That's much looser and broke apart more easily than the US, a single and somewhat unified country, would.

A post-superpower US would probably still be a great power, based on its size and geographical position between two large oceans. Not so much the UK, it's a small island nation without the British Empire and Commonwealth to bolster it.

The united states of america is a federal country composed out of 50ish territories, each with a distinct culture, identity and ethnic and religious makeup to the point where they can each be considered to be a separate nation. And it's only really held together by inertia and a shared patriotism and sense of national identity. So hypothetically if something was to undermine and destroy this common identity it could well fall apart into multiple blocks. Really it's not too terribly different from the Soviet Union in that respect.

Point is, history is unpredictable.

[Ansarre]

America is going down the drain sadly, thanks in part to the disastrous foreign policies of the Obama and Trump administrations. A Federal Europe is now necessary more than ever to fill the liberal void that will be opened up when America goes full isolationist in the coming decades.
Unless the Neoconservatives see an unlikely resurgence in the next few presidential elections, it is over for America.

Since you un-ironically a neocon, do you even live in Europe?

I'm not sure what being a neoconservative has to do with residing in Europe, but yes I do.

[Ansarre]

something more like "all countries are created equal".

Too bad this isn't the case. Some countries are bigger, some countries have more resources, a more strategically beneficial geographic position, smarter leadership and a populace more determined to improve themselves than others. There are far too many variables that determine the success of a country, and total equality will never be achieved among different polities.

China will eventually replace the US, the trajectory is more or less clear and there aren't many factors that point to American resurgence or geopolitical vitality. The fact that America needs to strong-arm its own European "allies" into specific buying decisions just indicates total desperation.

Disagree. China has one big issue and that's population. Some projections I've seen estimate the Chinese population by the turn of the century will be less than half of what it is today. That will still make it just over twice as large as projections for US population, but the economic damage of continuous population decline would be massive.

[Cetacea]

.

Disagree. China has one big issue and that's population. Some projections I've seen estimate the Chinese population by the turn of the century will be less than half of what it is today. That will still make it just over twice as large as projections for US population, but the economic damage of continuous population decline would be massive.

The estimates are that Europe and USA will also suffer a population decline by 2070 too due to the fertility rate dropping to below replacement levels. The US may be bolstered by immigration - resulting in an increasingly foreign born population and a greater shift to globalism.

Africa and India will possibly be the only places with population growth, with India overtaking China in population

[Punished UMN]

The United States lost its hegemony long ago. There's just no one able to fill the vacuum right now so we have a hodgepodge of regional powers trying to assert their influence over a declining American global sphere of influence which is retracting rapidly but putting up fights in certain parts of the globe.

[Latvijas Otra Republika]

The United States lost its hegemony long ago. There's just no one able to fill the vacuum right now so we have a hodgepodge of regional powers trying to assert their influence over a declining American global sphere of influence which is retracting rapidly but putting up fights in certain parts of the globe.

How, literally how.
There has been 0 decline

[Punished UMN]

The United States lost its hegemony long ago. There's just no one able to fill the vacuum right now so we have a hodgepodge of regional powers trying to assert their influence over a declining American global sphere of influence which is retracting rapidly but putting up fights in certain parts of the globe.

How, literally how.
There has been 0 decline

In 1991 (the beginning of US hegemony), the US was able to coerce all but a few of the most powerful countries very easily. Now it struggles to coerce even regional powers. Hegemony doesn't mean being the strongest country, it means being the strongest power in all theaters, that is not the case for the US.

[Kowani]

The United States lost its hegemony long ago. There's just no one able to fill the vacuum right now so we have a hodgepodge of regional powers trying to assert their influence over a declining American global sphere of influence which is retracting rapidly but putting up fights in certain parts of the globe.

How, literally how.
There has been 0 decline

This is only true if you ignore things like objective reality.

[The Emerald Legion]

How, literally how.
There has been 0 decline

This is only true if you ignore things like objective reality.

Not really no. America can still blow people up with more or less impunity.

[Punished UMN]

This is only true if you ignore things like objective reality.

Not really no. America can still blow people up with more or less impunity.

In far fewer countries than it used to be able to.

[The Emerald Legion]

Not really no. America can still blow people up with more or less impunity.

In far fewer countries than it used to be able to.

... No? I'm pretty sure we can still blow people up with impunity in the exact same number of countries as before.

[Punished UMN]

In far fewer countries than it used to be able to.

... No? I'm pretty sure we can still blow people up with impunity in the exact same number of countries as before.

Why don't we then?

[Ansarre]

The estimates are that Europe and USA will also suffer a population decline by 2070 too due to the fertility rate dropping to below replacement levels. The US may be bolstered by immigration - resulting in an increasingly foreign born population and a greater shift to globalism.

Africa and India will possibly be the only places with population growth, with India overtaking China in population

The only projection I can remember was one I seen recently and it suggested more a stagnation of the American population (a net growth of around 5mil between now and 2100), it didn't include Europe as a whole but it did show Germany and the UK shrinking slightly. But I do agree, Europe needs to hurry up and unite and look to foster an efficient and healthy immigration policy while also encouraging people who live here already to have more children. If I recall correctly, Duda and Orban have boosted their country's birth rates with some welfare policies but I don't know much about them.

[Punished UMN]

In 1991, the US was able to defeat the world's 5th most powerful (non-allied) military in the world in fewer than 100 hours in a ground war. If you think the US could do that today, you are delusional.

[Organized States]

In 1991, the US was able to defeat the world's 5th most powerful (non-allied) military in the world in fewer than 100 hours in a ground war. If you think the US could do that today, you are delusional.

I’m not. It’s part of my job and I can tell you we can do it in 72. We’re probably at our apex in terms of the ability to hunt and kill other human beings. We have better training and better or on par equipment with the rest of the planet. Plus we’ve created a generation of senior leaders and NCOs who have all seen combat and are experienced in conducting high-tempo operations across multiple continents simultaneously.

Could we be better? Absol-fucking-utely and I hope we do.