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The reports of the US's death are greatly exaggerated. It's still the world hegemony. China is a regional power. The US is a global one. The US's force projecti

The reports of the US's death are greatly exaggerated. It's still the world hegemony. China is a regional power. The US is a global one. The US's force projection, alliances, economic integration are and will be unmatched for decades at the very least.

defrost 2y ago
Spain, France, Holland, Britain - they all rose and fell as major powers. The US Steven Bradbury'd it's way into world hegemony less than a hundred years past following a European home goal that took out Britain and Germany. China hasn't been just a regional power for a few decades now; eg: how many nuclear power stations (long term big infrastructure) are being built by China in other countries right now .. how many are the US building? The US will be around for a century and more most likely, but it's alliances and economic integration are alteady on the wane. Depends whether the US can bring back proper diplomacy or whether it'll continue to rely on force projection.
- jeffnappi 2y ago
  One difference is that the US is a mixture of all the worlds people's. Is there a historic world power as diverse?
  - worik 2y ago
    > Is there a historic world power as diverse? Rome?
  - defrost 2y ago
    There are many differences, is this a difference that will reverse a historic trend of world powers rising and faliing, of waxing and waning? Will the diversity within the US enable it to pull together as a nation, overcome infighting, and out innovate China with it's plethora of phone and EV types, overnight pprototyping, on demand cheap bulk bespoke pharma production, etc?
  - sickofparadox 2y ago
    Is there any legitimate evidence to this being a benefit?
- worik 2y ago
  China is helped by a straight forward "interests" based foreign policy The USA has a "principles" based policy, that is hypocritical and is actually a private property based interests based policy. It makes the Chinese straight forward to deal with, whereas the USA is not easy to deal with, you can never be sure where you will stand with them in a decade. Then there is Trump....
  - bestouff 2y ago
    To me Trump is a symptom, not a cause.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    Henry "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests" Kissinger would disagree. (I'm willing to bet that in a decade the US will still consider their interests to be closer to the Athenians at Melos than to JFK being summoned by the trumpet. In particular, I'll bet that the US will remain interested in carrier strike groups, and remain uninterested in having either universal health care or skilled labour)
    - gradschoolfail 2y ago
      Would Henry “to be an enemy is dangerous, but to be friend fatal” Kissinger not agree to the immigration of skilled labour? Do you mean that, as a first order effect, both sides implicitly understand that imported skills would not survive generation 1?
      - 082349872349872 2y ago
        Tough question: as a 15 year old immigrant of different culture and religion and concepts, he seemed happy enough to have emigrated, but as a 100 year old he wasn't so sure about whether that ladder should be pulled up. (or maybe he was just miffed that instead of loanwords from hebrew, eg Tacheles reden, the kids in germany are shocking their elders by getting their loanwords from other semitic languages, eg Ahki?) which sides are both sides again? in this case I claim that it's difficult for imported skills to be transmitted to the next generation when the US educational system is (or at least it was during my time) built around producing the sort of highly fungible Schumpeterian worker bees who play well with others.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  To be fair, the germans were (let's lump both world wars here) attempting to replace the brits with themselves, not just play spoiler[0] and take them down. (I've seen at least one economist claim that given the growth differentials, they would've been better off peacefully outcompeting them, but maybe the "Thucydides trap"[1] was already sprung? Even so, it's still an own goal) [0] although this does make doing a Bradbury even more apt [1] compare "always two there are. no more. no less."

defrost 2y ago

Spain, France, Holland, Britain - they all rose and fell as major powers. The US Steven Bradbury'd it's way into world hegemony less than a hundred years past following a European home goal that took out Britain and Germany. China hasn't been just a regional power for a few decades now; eg: how many nuclear power stations (long term big infrastructure) are being built by China in other countries right now .. how many are the US building? The US will be around for a century and more most likely, but it's alliances and economic integration are alteady on the wane. Depends whether the US can bring back proper diplomacy or whether it'll continue to rely on force projection.

jeffnappi 2y ago
One difference is that the US is a mixture of all the worlds people's. Is there a historic world power as diverse?
- worik 2y ago
  > Is there a historic world power as diverse? Rome?
- defrost 2y ago
  There are many differences, is this a difference that will reverse a historic trend of world powers rising and faliing, of waxing and waning? Will the diversity within the US enable it to pull together as a nation, overcome infighting, and out innovate China with it's plethora of phone and EV types, overnight pprototyping, on demand cheap bulk bespoke pharma production, etc?
- sickofparadox 2y ago
  Is there any legitimate evidence to this being a benefit?
worik 2y ago
China is helped by a straight forward "interests" based foreign policy The USA has a "principles" based policy, that is hypocritical and is actually a private property based interests based policy. It makes the Chinese straight forward to deal with, whereas the USA is not easy to deal with, you can never be sure where you will stand with them in a decade. Then there is Trump....
- bestouff 2y ago
  To me Trump is a symptom, not a cause.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  Henry "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests" Kissinger would disagree. (I'm willing to bet that in a decade the US will still consider their interests to be closer to the Athenians at Melos than to JFK being summoned by the trumpet. In particular, I'll bet that the US will remain interested in carrier strike groups, and remain uninterested in having either universal health care or skilled labour)
  - gradschoolfail 2y ago
    Would Henry “to be an enemy is dangerous, but to be friend fatal” Kissinger not agree to the immigration of skilled labour? Do you mean that, as a first order effect, both sides implicitly understand that imported skills would not survive generation 1?
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      Tough question: as a 15 year old immigrant of different culture and religion and concepts, he seemed happy enough to have emigrated, but as a 100 year old he wasn't so sure about whether that ladder should be pulled up. (or maybe he was just miffed that instead of loanwords from hebrew, eg Tacheles reden, the kids in germany are shocking their elders by getting their loanwords from other semitic languages, eg Ahki?) which sides are both sides again? in this case I claim that it's difficult for imported skills to be transmitted to the next generation when the US educational system is (or at least it was during my time) built around producing the sort of highly fungible Schumpeterian worker bees who play well with others.
082349872349872 2y ago
To be fair, the germans were (let's lump both world wars here) attempting to replace the brits with themselves, not just play spoiler[0] and take them down. (I've seen at least one economist claim that given the growth differentials, they would've been better off peacefully outcompeting them, but maybe the "Thucydides trap"[1] was already sprung? Even so, it's still an own goal) [0] although this does make doing a Bradbury even more apt [1] compare "always two there are. no more. no less."