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But how much debt would it be in at the end of it all and is it still going to be able to maintain it's status as the dominant power? If all this happened, my m

by rcarr 3y ago

But how much debt would it be in at the end of it all and is it still going to be able to maintain it's status as the dominant power? If all this happened, my money would be on India leapfrogging to first place because it would be able to stay out of the main conflicts whilst simultaneously being able to leverage it's massive population and engineering skills to become the biggest manufacturing force.

myrandomcomment 3y ago
As soon as India see China is loosing they will likely use that to settle all the open territorial disputes quickly. The US winning just cements the dollar dominance in the world.
- rcarr 3y ago
  > As soon as India see China is loosing they will likely use that to settle all the open territorial disputes quickly. This has fairly similar parallels to what happened in WW2 though. US entered the war mid way through after Pearl Harbour and helped win the war, theoretically India could do the same. > The US winning just cements the dollar dominance in the world. Again, in WW2 the UK was the dominant currency, was on the winning team, but lost dominant currency status because the debts amassed were too large that it no longer had enough money to maintain the infrastructure necessary and service the debt so other countries sold off their holdings of GBP debt in favour of the safer haven of the US.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    The UK was in pretty bad shape after WW2, and accelerated dismantling its empire (so it was mostly gone by 1949). The US never had an empire to begin with, and was relatively untouched by WW2. They lent a lot of money to help Europe and Japan rebuild, the rest is history.
    - rcarr 3y ago
      The US doesn't have a traditional empire but it does spend a lot of money on international military bases as well as protecting strategic infrastructure and resources across the globe. It's difficult, if not impossible, to maintain that kind of global influence and service stratospherically high debts simultaneously. In that scenario, spending money to resolve internal problems always ends up taking precedent over global influence and other countries with rising bank balances step in to fill the void.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
> But how much debt would it be in at the end of it all and is it still going to be able to maintain it's status as the dominant power? Whatever it takes? As long as American interests are threatened. I don't mean jumping into every single quagmire of questionable value to the USA (Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam), but if Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Ukraine were threatened with being taken over by..actually anyone at all...I don't see how the USA couldn't get involved, and why it wouldn't be in their interests not to. The alternative is a rapid decline in world stability, which would cost way more than whatever America spent fighting instead. > If all this happened, my money would be on India leapfrogging to first place because it would be able to stay out of the main conflicts whilst simultaneously being able to leverage it's massive population and engineering skills to become the biggest manufacturing force. If India were able to function and produce at America's level, they would already be leapfrogging everyone, but they are still pretty dysfunctional in terms of governance and allocating capital and labor productively. The only part of India doing well is a small private sector in technology that benefits from the government not caring about it enough to meddle. China, on the other hand, has a much better chance of capitalizing on American instability one way or the other IF they are somehow not involved in the conflict.
- rcarr 3y ago
  > Whatever it takes? Yes but this is what the UK did in WW2 and ended up with so much debt that it could no longer service them and other countries lost faith in buying the debt and so they invested in the US instead. > If India were able to function and produce at America's level, they would already be leapfrogging everyone, but they are still pretty dysfunctional in terms of governance and allocating capital and labor productively. The only part of India doing well is a small private sector in technology that benefits from the government not caring about it enough to meddle. They're growing rapidly and they're one of only four countries to put a vehicle on the Moon. If the world was at war there would be a lot of money to be made and they're one of the only countries that would be well positioned to take advantage of it. > China, on the other hand, has a much better chance of capitalizing on American instability one way or the other IF they are somehow not involved in the conflict. Well yeah, but we're specifically discussing a theoretical conflict in which they're one of the main players in the conflict.

by rcarr 3y ago

myrandomcomment 3y ago

As soon as India see China is loosing they will likely use that to settle all the open territorial disputes quickly. The US winning just cements the dollar dominance in the world.

rcarr 3y ago
> As soon as India see China is loosing they will likely use that to settle all the open territorial disputes quickly. This has fairly similar parallels to what happened in WW2 though. US entered the war mid way through after Pearl Harbour and helped win the war, theoretically India could do the same. > The US winning just cements the dollar dominance in the world. Again, in WW2 the UK was the dominant currency, was on the winning team, but lost dominant currency status because the debts amassed were too large that it no longer had enough money to maintain the infrastructure necessary and service the debt so other countries sold off their holdings of GBP debt in favour of the safer haven of the US.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  The UK was in pretty bad shape after WW2, and accelerated dismantling its empire (so it was mostly gone by 1949). The US never had an empire to begin with, and was relatively untouched by WW2. They lent a lot of money to help Europe and Japan rebuild, the rest is history.
  - rcarr 3y ago
    The US doesn't have a traditional empire but it does spend a lot of money on international military bases as well as protecting strategic infrastructure and resources across the globe. It's difficult, if not impossible, to maintain that kind of global influence and service stratospherically high debts simultaneously. In that scenario, spending money to resolve internal problems always ends up taking precedent over global influence and other countries with rising bank balances step in to fill the void.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

> But how much debt would it be in at the end of it all and is it still going to be able to maintain it's status as the dominant power? Whatever it takes? As long as American interests are threatened. I don't mean jumping into every single quagmire of questionable value to the USA (Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam), but if Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Ukraine were threatened with being taken over by..actually anyone at all...I don't see how the USA couldn't get involved, and why it wouldn't be in their interests not to. The alternative is a rapid decline in world stability, which would cost way more than whatever America spent fighting instead. > If all this happened, my money would be on India leapfrogging to first place because it would be able to stay out of the main conflicts whilst simultaneously being able to leverage it's massive population and engineering skills to become the biggest manufacturing force. If India were able to function and produce at America's level, they would already be leapfrogging everyone, but they are still pretty dysfunctional in terms of governance and allocating capital and labor productively. The only part of India doing well is a small private sector in technology that benefits from the government not caring about it enough to meddle. China, on the other hand, has a much better chance of capitalizing on American instability one way or the other IF they are somehow not involved in the conflict.

rcarr 3y ago
> Whatever it takes? Yes but this is what the UK did in WW2 and ended up with so much debt that it could no longer service them and other countries lost faith in buying the debt and so they invested in the US instead. > If India were able to function and produce at America's level, they would already be leapfrogging everyone, but they are still pretty dysfunctional in terms of governance and allocating capital and labor productively. The only part of India doing well is a small private sector in technology that benefits from the government not caring about it enough to meddle. They're growing rapidly and they're one of only four countries to put a vehicle on the Moon. If the world was at war there would be a lot of money to be made and they're one of the only countries that would be well positioned to take advantage of it. > China, on the other hand, has a much better chance of capitalizing on American instability one way or the other IF they are somehow not involved in the conflict. Well yeah, but we're specifically discussing a theoretical conflict in which they're one of the main players in the conflict.