Many folks provided excellent comments to my first post (here: http://www.dailykos.com/... ). I'd like to discuss those comments and continue to move the conversation forward. The main issue is how does the U.S. deal with it's declining power in the world? Although still the most powerful nation in many ways, the future portends a rise in Asian influence and power that will dwarf that of the U.S. More below.
1.) Much conversation was about the importance of having a Navy (something that I hadn't thought about too much myself), beginning with aaraujo who said:
"If America wants to continue with this, it must maintain the moral authority that actually allows other nations to default to the US and her Navy."
I think this moral linkage to military power is generally true. The world will be more likely to accept U.S. imput if the U.S. generally does "good" things with its power. Implicit in this argument is a.) a large Navy will always be an important asset for any power, and b.) such a hurdle is fairly hard to overcome. Will China or India ever develop a world-class Navy on par with that of the U.S.? The Soviets are the only ones who've tried and they went bankrupt in the process. Certainly none of the "terrorists" have access to a decent-sized Navy, so that immediately relegates them to back-burner threat status. Not that we should forget about terrorism, but rather that a large and well-equipped army is much more "threatening" to the U.S. The terrorists cannot take over the U.S. The Chinese could possibly amass a large enough Navy and enough ground troops to pose a real threat. That being said, Dallasdoc brings up a good point about China's neighbors keeping the reins on China's expansion:
"Asia is a big place, with many traditionally antagonistic actors who will be jostling for power. China has expansionist ambitions, but it also has a lot of scared or suspicious neighbors. It will likely fall to the Russians, the Japanese, the Indians and maybe the Indonesians to hem in China's ambitions."
2.) There was some good discussion regarding historical precedent for how the decline of U.S power might play out, kicked off by Richard Lyon:
"I think that the best basis for predicting the future of the American empire is to look at the decline of the British empire. It happened over quite a long period of time from about 1880 to 1945. They are still trying to hang onto the shreds of past glory by tagging along in the US saddle bags."
I believe that to generally be true, although I think the U.S. is somewhat different in that it hasn't exercised its Imperial tendancies in the same way as Europe (the U.S. itself is an outgrowth of Eurpoean imperialism, after all). I pointed out that the U.S. hasn't had a need to conquer large swaths of territory. It's power lies more in what it can do than how much land it has, and that (in my mind, anyway) makes the U.S. position in the world more fluid. There are other details, though, that do mesh well. Quoting Richard Lyon:
"Before WWI British investors held claims on a vast amount of assets in the rest of the world, most of those not in their colonies. WWI forced them to sell much of this off and the proceeds were poured down the military rat hole. WWII finished the process."
"The commonwealth, even including Canada and Australia didn't represent that much money. What they had they had effectively loaned to the UK through the mechanism of the Stirling balances. The US pulled the rug out from under that shaky arrangement as a condition of their loans"
I think the U.S. position and the British position in the financial world were, at one time, very similar. Now, for somewhat similar reasons, there's been capital flight out of the U.S. By "out" I don't just mean out of the country (i.e., China holding a large chunk of U.S. debt), but also into the hands of people who may not have the same goals as the government, which I think is one cause of the decline in U.S. power. Point being that while the British model isn't perfect, there are many useful things the U.S. can learn about how to handle the changing dynamics of global power by looking at British history.
3.) Other discussion included a pointed question from intruder from Old Europe:
"Why would anyone care? This is not a tabletop game. It's not about who wins, by developing faster than others, claiming land and resources, building up the army most quickly, and conspiring with fellow players against third parties to harvest the fame of the winner in the end. Because there (hopefully) will be no end."
I think that's a good question. Among other things, could we be entering a time when there is no single "superpower" or even a collection of "superpowers"? While these issues affect policy, Old Europe rightly pointed out that they're not important to the general public. I mostly agree with that, although to the extent that U.S. patriotism has been stylized and turned into U.S. nationalism, the symbolic position of the U.S. in the world is used in many ways as a political tool. But will our childern or their children care about this "old-fashioned" way of looking at the world in fifty years? More generally, what will U.S. patriotism look like in fifty years?
I hope to continue this discussion in comments and future diary posts. Thanks to those who commented on the first post!