Yes in 2023 the US still stands at the top but it’s not a guaranteed future. To maintain that status requires maintenance and discipline. If you can do 9 laps

Yes in 2023 the US still stands at the top but it’s not a guaranteed future. To maintain that status requires maintenance and discipline. If you can do 9 laps in the time your competitors do 2 then it’s easy to stagnate. You can say, “why spend all this effort to do be able to do 9 laps, I only need to do 5 to still stay way ahead”. So you take your foot off the gas and start to coast. However if your competitors start creeping up, they start doing 3…4… now there is incentive to maintain your lead or even grow your lead more. Additionally the US is not immune to the unpredictable. What if we get another dust bowl? Energy system collapse? Civil war? These things can chip away at our “lead” if we are inattentive and ill prepared.