America will endure for all time.

Great Debates
1

Currently, the UN is a tool of the United States. Through its veto power, economic blackmail, and bribes, it effectively manipulates the world body for its own benefit. At its whim, the US either uses the UN to legitimize its actions or, when world opinion goes against it, they are ignored without major repurcussions. It is the nation most intolerant of opposing viewpoints, casting 150 solitary vetoes since its inception. By many accounts, the US is a rogue state, however it is a rogue state that cannot be sanctioned, or blockaded since it controls the legistative bodies that would make these decisions.

Not that any country, or coalition of countries, could even enforce any action against the United States against its will. The UN’s ability to project force is solely dependant on the US. In fact, the total combined military strength of every potential adversary of the United States; Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, hell-even France - would not be half as large as the US military(1). Most countries’ entire naval capacities could not match the firepower of one nuclear-powered Aircraft carrier group - America has 12 of these.

Not to mention, through superior technology, commanding officers can see an entire battlefield on an LCD screen in realtime through GPS and fiberoptics. US satellite technologies can inform all troops of their allies and enemies exact position. Other technologies effectively blind the enemy to such information. The proposed missile defense system could eliminate the threat of ICBM’s, and some advocated orbiting weapon systems could strike targets on Earth - from space!

Furthermore, affording such dominance is surprisingly cheap for the Economically Predominant. The Dollar, the global currency, benefits the US enormously. By having control over interest rates, the global economy can be manipulated to further domestic aims. The US has disemboweled entire countries for its own gain. When Argentina went bankrupt, it underwent ‘capital flight’, $130 billion left the country, most of it into US banks. Through the WTO, IMF, and World Bank (which are some of the most secretive and undemocratic institutions), the US pries open foreign economies while conceding almost nothing of its own. In Ghana for example, the WTO allowed the US to dump food at below production cost, forcing local farmers out of business and becoming dependant on US farmers. The WTO and IMF have encouraged indebted countries to export their way out. This leads to oversupply, there are no mechanisms to balance supply and demand. The US beneficts from price stability, and the effects are felt in the producer countries. Basically, America has engineered a global economy which always ends up benefitting the American economy.

I would argue that even hyperpower (that awful word) is not adequate to describe US influence. The US is simply the world. You can find a Mcdonald’s in Islam’s holy city, Mecca. the Dollar is accepted in remote Iranian villages. Billboards of Ms. Spears appear in Paraguay. Cities worldwide are losing their cultural ‘feel’ and become bland americanized cities with buildings that might as well be from Minneapolis, or Houston, the so-called ‘international’ style.

One area of predominance feeds another area of predominance feeds another area of predominance. American economic leverage increases technological knowledge increases military strength increases political clout increases economic leverage ad infinitum. I would say the only vulnerable point is the unpredictable economy, however the authorities have tight controls to make sure it keeps chugging along, and we’ve been a commercial society since birth (coincidence that Smith’s Wealth of Nations was published on our birthday?). We know how to play the economic game and we’re going to keep playing it. The highly educated workforce of our 300 million citizens are motivated to keep earning and consuming, and they’re not going anywhere.

American has the power to define what progress mean, and it means to become more like America. If a society is not becoming more like america, it is “backwards”. As Ziauddin Sardar noted(2), Old Powers used to colonize other parts of the world, but America has colonized the future.

Or, as Oswald Spengler said, “America may well endure for all time.”(3)

Well, seems as though I composed a mini research paper for you guys. Feel free to try and prove that America is on the verge of certain collapse. Or, if American predominance is either good or bad for the world. For those who care I made some references.
1 - Davies, Merryl Wyn; Sardar, Ziauddin. “Why do People Hate America?”
2 - Sardar, Ziauddin. “Western Colonization of the Future”.
3 - Spengler, Oswald. “When Immortality is Not Enough”.

2

I disagree with this. America as a political unit - as we know it today - will more than likely be quite different as a political unit in the future. If, however, Spengler was referring to the idea of America; then those elements that embody the idea of America (both good and bad) may well outlive the political unit we know as the U.S.A. After all, Rome collapsed - but elements of Rome survive to this day. The same can be said for other major civilizations that have risen and fallen.

I seriously doubt anyone would be able to marshall evidence to make such a claim (that the US is on the verge of certain collapse - meaning that it will occur in the near/foreseeable future), so your challenge is rather pointless.

It’s neither good nor bad - it just is (for the present moment). If history is any guide, American predominance will fade, only to be taken up by another power.

3

“My name is Ozymandius, king of kings.”

4

I never looked at it that way before. Damn, we’re good!

5

America can’t endure for more than 7.5 billion years; by then the brightening sun will have melted the surface of the earth into a magma ocean. :slight_smile:

6

Gee, putting aside global warming, another ice age, ‘nookler’ war, devastating epidemics, world famine, or a global economic collapse precipitated by US insolvency, the sun will become a red giant in a few billion years. So the “all time” thing is right out.

Doesn’t the fact that the US could be economically ruined tomorrow if the rest of the world stopped investing here kinds blows your whole thesis? Or wouldn’t a good oil embargo would do it too?
Or a week without electricity for a few key US cities. Or just a continuing growth in income disparities.

BTW, nice cites. Incontrovertible support of your idea. :rolleyes:

7

America’s not the first to dominate the world with its culture. The Greeks did it with the help of Alexander the Great. The Muslims did it from its foundings with Muhammad through the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire. Need I even have to elaborate on Rome? If there’s one thing that history has taught man, it’s that the dominant culture will cast itself over the region (in our case, the entire globe) until it falls, whereby it will be replaced by the next dominant culture. There is little doubt in my mind that America will fall one day. I pray it doesn’t happen in my lifetime nor in my childrens’ lifetime, but I hold no illusions that America will last an eternity. Something will happen that will cause the USA to dissolve and something else will take its place in the world.

8

Yea, what would happen once the world starts realizing the truth of the American hegemony? Theres already considerable conglomerations of nations- the EU, Russian Federation, the Commonwealth. Most are on pretty good terms with the U.S. at the moment, but they are much more likely to be looking out for Number 1 then about allowing the U.S. to maintain its imperial powers.

[Slight hijack]
Hypothetically, what would happen if the national debt was significantly reduced or entirely abolished. Yea its not likely to happen, but a sudden withdrawal in investment by foreign corporations and nations would cause quite a panic. Would it spell the end of the federal government and the U.S. as we know it?

9

[QUOTE=Brandus]

The US has disemboweled entire countries for its own gain. When Argentina went bankrupt, it underwent ‘capital flight’, $130 billion left the country, most of it into US banks. Through the WTO, IMF, and World Bank (which are some of the most secretive and undemocratic institutions), the US pries open foreign economies while conceding almost nothing of its own. In Ghana for example, the WTO allowed the US to dump food at below production cost, forcing local farmers out of business and becoming dependant on US farmers.
QUOTE]
Name a developed country that doesn’t dump food at below production price on poor countries through subsities. The EU and Japan aren’t any better in this respect, EU is probibly even worse. Secondly, I’d like for you to explain how the US enginered the Argentinian fiasco and how they profited from it.

10

Prove them wrong, then.

We’ll wait.

11

Nicely put.

12

Well, someone’s got to put up an argument . . .

The Achilles Heel is the dollar – that’s the dollar rather than the economy. It’s never been accountable before and so they just keep printing ‘em and printing ‘em without fear of inflation because other nations need to keep hold of them (for trading, especially buying oil – oil being traded in $US). The $US replaced the Gold Standard and is the world currency just as much as English is the world language for business. But not forever.

And the national debt is frightening, but that doesn’t matter all the while you can just keep printing cash without fear of inflation; It’s easy, another couple Billion ? Sure, give the guys at the print works some overtime.

But that 50-year era is slowly coming to an end and the $US will become increasingly accountable.

It was interesting, for example, that Saddam’s cash holdings were 90% $US and 10% euros, and that a short time after the euro came to be. An interesting sign of the times.

The key looks to be the pricing of oil in $US, if and when more countries see more advantage in pricing oil in euros, that Achilles Heel is exposed . . . and the whole pack of cards starts to fall.

I suppose the big issue is how far the empire will go to ensure oil is still priced in $US. That could get very ugly indeed.

Reposting this from a while ago:

Put simply: (Link)

The dollar is the de facto world reserve currency: the US currency accounts for approximately two thirds of all official exchange reserves. More than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions and half of all world exports are denominated in dollars. In addition, all IMF loans are denominated in dollars.
But the more dollars there are circulating outside the US, or invested by foreign owners in American assets, the more the rest of the world has had to provide the US with goods and services in exchange for these dollars. The dollars cost the US next to nothing to produce, so the fact that the world uses the currency in this way means that the US is importing vast quantities of goods and services virtually for free.
Or, put another way: (Link)

"Ever since 1971, when US president Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard (at $35 per ounce) that had been agreed to at the Bretton Woods Conference at the end of World War II, the dollar has been a global monetary instrument that the United States, and only the United States, can produce by fiat. The dollar, now a fiat currency, is at a 16-year trade-weighted high despite record US current-account deficits and the status of the US as the leading debtor nation. The US national debt as of April 4 was $6.021 trillion against a gross domestic product (GDP) of $9 trillion.

"World trade is now a game in which the US produces dollars and the rest of the world produces things that dollars can buy. The world’s interlinked economies no longer trade to capture a comparative advantage; they compete in exports to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts and to accumulate dollar reserves to sustain the exchange value of their domestic currencies. To prevent speculative and manipulative attacks on their currencies, the world’s central banks must acquire and hold dollar reserves in corresponding amounts to their currencies in circulation. The higher the market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves its central bank must hold. This creates a built-in support for a strong dollar that in turn forces the world’s central banks to acquire and hold more dollar reserves, making it stronger. This phenomenon is known as dollar hegemony, which is created by the geopolitically constructed peculiarity that critical commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil. The recycling of petro-dollars is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973.

"By definition, dollar reserves must be invested in US assets, creating a capital-accounts surplus for the US economy. Even after a year of sharp correction, US stock valuation is still at a 25-year high and trading at a 56 percent premium compared with emerging markets.

“. . . The US capital-account surplus in turn finances the US trade deficit. Moreover, any asset, regardless of location, that is denominated in dollars is a US asset in essence. When oil is denominated in dollars through US state action and the dollar is a fiat currency, the US essentially owns the world’s oil for free. And the more the US prints greenbacks, the higher the price of US assets will rise. Thus a strong-dollar policy gives the US a double win.”

13

OP: very doubtful

14

A link I already posted in another thread about the dollar and its impact on world politics: Andre Gunder Frank: Paper Tiger

15

Us Brits used to say the same thing about our Empire. That was only a hundred years ago…

You are indeed big and clever, and you will endure, but you will not endure indefinitely.

To continue Diogenes’s quote:

“Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

16

flonks - I know nothing of this Andre Gunder Frank from Northeastern but I’ll look forward to reading that paper later this evening. Cheers.

17

London_Calling, FYI: I once started a thread with the link in the OP.

As for the OP of this thread: I do think that the dollar/euro question is the biggest threat to the future success of the US. If world politics changes, then things could indeed get nasty.

18

I’m sorry. Did you step out of the world last year when the whole Northeast US experienced a blackout? It would take a little more than a week or even a month without power to make the US disappear.

And the idea that the entire world would stop investing here is also ridiculous. Besides, we weould still be America even if we were poor.

jjimm - The Brittish Empire might have lasted a little longer if they choose a color other than RED for their military.

19

:smiley: Or pink on the maps…

20

I was thinking of the same thing, but with different wording:
“I’m Yertle the Turtle, oh marvellous me! For I am the ruler of all I can see!”

Not that I would derive the slightest pleasure from the toppling of the USA - far from it, as this would entail much human suffering. I just don’t think anything qualifies as everlasting, except death and taxation maybe.