What will be?

[A Black Falcon]

First... ASM. Why in the world would we 'terraform' Antarctica? Are you forgetting that its on the bottom of the earth, is covered in a permanant ice sheet, and in the best conditions would be extremely inhospitible? No, there is absolutely no reason or way to do that.

The moon... I hope we set up a permanant colony there in not too long, it'd be a important step to going farther beyond the earth.

And Weltall... yes, we are unlike previous empires. We don't have a equal military opponenent anymore, we have economic dominance and a very well funded military... but nothing is absolute.

If America's economy went downhill far enough, and we stretched ourselves too much and got embroiled in too many conflicts, and let other regions gain economic strength as we lose ours -- all very possible things -- we could lose our superpower status.

Do I think we'd dissolve or something? Short of a 'back to the stone age' war, no. But we could become more like all the other ex-empires -- strong, but not number one anymore.

Too much land? Sometimes, but usually it was internal decay, at least for empires that lasted. Rome did fall because of external pressure, but with sufficient internal strength they could have gotten past it. They didn't have that anymore and they gave in.

It won't happen soon, I'd say, but we could lose our strength through decay of economic superiority... what if other regions kept gaining strength and unity? Places like a united Europe or China could very well challenge us economically given the right circumstances... as I said we wouldn't cease to exist, we'd just stop having overwhelming power over everyone.

Yes, right now our economy drives the world and our culture is tops. But both of those are things that as you should know aren't absolutes. As world events happen both of those conditions could change drastically.

We won't lose because of military might. But with a combonation of factors we could, and at some point will, lose our supremacy in the future.

Remember, there are 300 million of us but 1.2 or 1.3 billion Chinese... when that nation becomes a modern society -- it'll take quite a while but it WILL happen in the end -- it would be a very serious threat, for so many reasons...

Or it could be a United Europe that takes worldwide economic supremacy...

And of course there is the UN. Will it gain power? And until then who will provide the forces? Sure, right now we give very few peacekeepers... and because of that we put a major strain on the organization because of how much bigger our military budget is than anyone else's. But if other areas could get their economies on level with ours and ours decayed, as is quite possible, we would lose our 'empire'.


This isn't a very well thought out post, I know, but its about the future and we really don't know what will happen...

All I know is that given that the world will change, a LOT, over the centuries, I'd NEVER bet on any nation keeping power indefinitely. There are far, far too many variables and pitfalls that would stop them to even begin to say that its likely.

Oh yeah, and blaming it on liberals while saying that they hate America is idiotic and completely ridiculous, especially given what this current conservative adminstration is doing to destroy every shred of our international credibility (that is vital to being an empire without an army controlling its 'territory') and destabalize vital parts of the world...