If America collapses would that be a good thing?

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At the rate things are going it seems that the United States will be no more than a memory as the country is in bigger debt than ever wasting billions of dollars on war with money borrowed from China as China presses on forward. Soon America wont even be able to afford to defend itself leading onto an attack from outside sources.

It might be a good thing for non Americans, but complete hell for Americans.

However, without America there to stick it's nose in the rest of the world's business, WWIII might happen.

Long term? Yes.

SHort term.... not so much.

Well, historically speaking, the collapse of any empire is never a positive thing. One can expect economic and social turmoil, along with the influx of "barbarians" from outside.
Realistically though, no great power lasts forever, and it's absurd to think that America is going to be around forever, even though I concede, I can't imagine a world with the good ol' USA. I'm sure the Romans believed they were going to be around sixteen centuries later into our time.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

No change, then.

I think we're headed more towards the path of the U.K. I mean during the 18th century they had it all: a powerful military, colonies whose resources they could ravage, and a thirst to rule more and more people! But now, we're at the dawn of the 21st century and the recognized sole superpower is the United States of America, a former servant colony of England.


But here are some parallels:
- As I mentioned before, a powerful military was England's asset for foreign diplomacy at its height of rule and right now, the U.S. military has that title.
- The Sterling (the U.K.'s money until around the 60s or 70s) used to be THE currency to have until its eventual collapse. Right now, the U.S. Dollar is headed towards that direction.
- American imperialism is very similar to British colonialism except for the fact that American imperialism has impacted far more nations but taken over way less colonies. It's "do or die" with the two powers and the world when it comes to foreign policy!


That said, there are some differences:

- The British did have colonialism, as opposed to American imperialism, and so we don't "seem" like ruthless rulers in the eyes of our allies and citizens though in fact, we may have helped in causing most, if not all, of the wars that have happened since WWI either through our policies or corporate greed. As we speak, blood diamonds and resources for our cell phones are being fought over by tribesmen who are bribed by American and European corporations to do what it takes to get the all-important resources!
- Our philosophy has always been freedom and justice, but look at what we're doing to the world! At least the British didn't mask their ulterior motives, they just went straight ahead and did killing sprees like no tomorrow without having to explain to their subjects that it's for _____________ but how many times have you heard an American government official say something like: "[This] was done so that [this] can happen though unfortunately lives were lost.... "
- Finally, the British empire never had to deal with being the hated mediator for a world that's full of nukes and biological warfare! They only ruled, colonized, plundered, and went on without really caring about conflicts among other nations while we ruled, plundered, and do care about conflicts among other nations because we want to make sure our corporations can get the resources they needed.


So it is likely that America will eventually fall, though I think this might take a few decades. I'm optimistic only because other nations still see the importance of the U.S. in terms of how dependent they are on our foreign policy skills. Anyway, my advice would probably be to get dual citizenship from Canada or Mexico since eventually, Mexico will get richer, Canada will become more powerful, and America won't last forever. Remember that saying, "the bigger you are, the harder you fall"! Hopefully, we'll only fall as much as the U.K. did since to be honest, England is actually regaining some leverage as a major member of the EU, as well as their influence on pop culture.

No, it'd be insanely terrible. The US economy has deep ties to most other economies in the world. If we collapse, the rest of the world will suffer tremendously as well because of that. Not only that, but if our system collapses, what will happen to our weaponry? In all likelihood, it would then be funneled towards damaging activities. Either by an unstable reconstruction resulting from the failed American state, or from being taken off into the black market.

Good point, I couldn't have said (or thought) it better! That's the fallacy of globalization. We may be more interconnected to each other as a global village but if one of us fails, we'll all break and fail like a series circuit, one light goes off the rest of them are gone too!

And the weaponry, of course I'd forget about the nukes and the biological warfare. Those are gonna be the end of the world, it may not happen in 3 weeks, but it's bound to happen if America fails and angry people end up thieving the weapons of a failed state and I guess that's how WWIII starts! Hopefully that won't be the case and we'll just suffer a more gradual decline, that way, at least we'll still have some leverage. But really, we need to lay off on that imperialism stuff.

No it wouldn't. The Netherlands are the third largest investor in the USA (mostly banking and insurance) and we would lose a lot of money. Then there is the loss of export to the USA (4,4% ) and the loss of freight to the USA. Nearly half of the container ships in Rotterdam harbour are destined for the USA. Considering that Rotterdam in the second largest harbour in the world, it would be a disaster for our economy.

I dont think, that the USA really would collapse like other old empires. These others empires who really collapsed had always a heartland and a lots of colonies and not equal substates. Rome, Russia, Austria, France, England and so on... so when the land did loose power, it couldnt force the other lands to be part of it any longer.

But beside a small amount of people, thats not the case in the USA. There are different equal states who feel equal to another. So the USA can get poorer or richer, but i dont see a collapse with countries departing and so on.

I would compare it to russia. So russia even lost some countries but still russias heartland had so many citzen, had so much earth ressources and so much industry (not because there is that much industry/kilometer, but its just that huge) that sure it lost some power and so on, but still its one of the biggest/mightiest countries in the world.

So like russia, the USA will maybe decrease at military and industry, but for me theres a difference between "Not longer military global player No. 1." and "Collapse."

Naaah.

Well, I'm pretty sure that a decline in the USA would lead to one in Europe as well. Again, this is the result of globalization and corporate interests. For example, if Europe or Asia end up falling instead of America, we'd still be screwed. Wall Street is investing trillions in companies outside the USA and if for some reason most of those investments fail to reap good fruit, they'll have a reason to launch financially devastating measures via the government (the Federal Reserve in particular) and eventually, affect every American.

And that is a good point Schneekugel, I forgot about Russia's eventual decline. Though I doubt that "collapse" will happen, decline is imminent and most likely, this will be the case with our military and remaining industrial supremacy. Recently, I heard about an idea that would propose extracting more fuel (not environmentally sound at all) that could launch a modern industrial era since apparently we'll also be the largest oil producing nation in the world at some point in the future. That with the much needed upgrade of our infrastructure and slightly booming economy will probably hold off a fall of America for a few decades but we're a people of habit, we forget the lessons that we've learned and get back to conditions like the Great Depression, but only in modern times.

I love America but yeah, America does not love its history classes so I'm left to wonder.....

China has a bigger problem than the U.S. The population of China is about 1.25 billion. About 300,000,00 Chinese live in a modern urban industrial technological state. That leaves 900,000,000 who live at abysmal third world states of poverty and backwardness. Unless the Chines powers that be can absorb a good part of the 900,000,000 into a more modern life style China will suffer from political instability.

As a proportion of the population our underclass is miniscule compare to that of China.

The U.S. will decline as a military power. Why? Because we can't afford it any more. We have eaten up the capital generated between the end of WW2 and 1970. Now we are eating our seed corn. This will come to a halt one way or another. The worst outcome is a total collapse of the economy with riots breaking out, especially in the big cities. The more likely outcome is a decline into a mediocre state of product and performance. Look at Britain. Britain did not collapse as a nation even though the Empire went bankrupt and perished because of two expensive wars. There will always be an England but Britania will no longer Rule the Waves.

If we were really serious about undoing China, we could do it by turning over the mantel of dominance to them., They expense would kill them in under ten years.

ruveyn

I think it would be a bad thing, especially for the people in America.

What would we get? Communism, authoritarianism? I don't think it would be as free of a place as we live in now.

The American public has a major weakness. It believes money grows on trees and prosperity can be achieve through Good Intentions alone. Until we learn the basics of reality -- that all good things are the result of labor and intelligence, we shall always dance on the Edge of Ruin.

ruveyn

A lot of exporting countries would be much worse off as the price of their exports will fall from the US not importing goods from them since they are important in the world economy so they will be worse off.