All of those preceding empires thought they would be eternal. "The Empire on which the Sun never sets." was only a decade or two away from collapse. Most peopl

All of those preceding empires thought they would be eternal. "The Empire on which the Sun never sets." was only a decade or two away from collapse. Most people aren't aware that Japan started the war in the Pacific with 3 or 4 times as many aircraft carriers as the US had. The deciding factor was that the US could replace the carriers that were sunk in 1942 whereas the Japanese didn't have the manufacturing capacity to do likewise. The US was able to build about 150 (smaller) aircraft carriers in four years, the Japanese had no hope of doing that. In today's world, the powerful US of 1942 no longer exists. The country which has the manufacturing capacity today is China. The US thinking of going to war against China is as smart as the Wehrmacht thinking of going to war against the Soviets. And we all know how that one ended up.