
The decline of US power? - tpatke
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33440287
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rm999
Perversely, America's excessive amount of control over all other countries has
likely (largely) led to the world's unprecedented amount of peace and
stability. This is the theory of Hegemonic stability:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonic_stability_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonic_stability_theory)

The US doesn't exert its power for the greater good, it does so for its own
economic gain - but world peace and stability are good for the US. It's a very
interesting dynamic. It's very subjective if USA's relative waning power is
good or bad, but there's a chance we'll see increasing strife in the world as
America's power wanes.

edit: based off the ever-changing karma on this comment I'm assuming some
people are downvoting this. My comment is meant to be a neutral stance towards
a well-respected political theory - how about a response along with the
downvotes? I'd love to have some discussion around the Hegemonic stability
theory, which I find fascinating.

~~~
eitally
I upvoted because I agree with you. I think the long view -- and I've held
this view ever since the IT outsourcing trend started and I was asked to
cultivate teams in India, Brazil, China & Mexico to replace Americans &
Europeans -- is that globalization the rising tide that raises all boats. And,
as painful as it sometimes is, it's actually happening. There have been hugely
detrimental repercussions: mass surveillance, one-sided treaties & trade
embargoes/tariffs, political & military meddling, and lots of death. But,
there is no beating around the fact that technology, global manufacturing, and
access to digital information & education has swiftly improved the global
economy and overall peace & stability within & between many countries. There
are plenty of counterpoints, but from the broadest possible perspective, I
think it's hard to disagree with your point.

~~~
mrSugar
You should be upvoting comments because you think they add value to the
topic/discussion, not because you happen to agree with the poster. That is how
echo chambers are created.

~~~
nine_k
Sometimes you upvote a comment because you agree with it _and_ consider it
informative and correct — this is why you agree with it.

Sometimes you upvote a comment that you _don 't_ agree with but see it as
genuinely informative or at least insightful.

What you don't is upvoting a comment which is not informative, or even
misleading, but still conforming to your views.

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x5n1
Empires on average last for 250 years. It's about time for the US to start
losing power. Not only that America really doesn't know what to do about many
of the problems that it helped create. American capitalists helped create
China, American foreign policy helped create the "new" Middle East. Which is
an unstable hell hole and will probably continue to be for the foreseeable
future.

[http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2014/092814_files/...](http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2014/092814_files/TheFateofEmpiresbySirJohnGlubb.pdf)

page 4.

also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_empires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_empires)

~~~
bsaul
I'm not sure americans are for anything in the current mess. China was a
strong power for centuries thanks to its huge population and territory. It
just lagged a bit behind and just catched up. Middle east has also been a mess
for centuries ( at the minimum). Shiites vs sunnites is a forever running war,
and you can't tell the US are really the root cause of it.

As for saying "empires on average" , i don't think it means anything. Some
lasted for more than 1000 years, other less than 5. But we don't have enough
statistics to assume anything is "about time".

~~~
honest_joe
Quite the opposite. China was a 2nd player due to its vast territory and
population. Chinese are not homogeneous like Koreans for example when it comes
to culture and one language. They were always hard to manage and hard to rule
and organize. That's why they kept loosing to japanese, mongols, british and
the US.

China has to always pay attention to its neighbours. They can be economic
dwarves compared to US or China but are extremely powerful when organized.

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vinay_ys
So many sci-fi episodes from startrek/stargate come to mind. US foreign policy
(for that matter any countries') is designed to exploit all other countries
for the benefit of their own interests. Sometimes immediate interests cause
shortsightedness which results in a mess being created for them as well. It
used to be that mess everywhere else is good for US businesses. But given how
all economies are interconnected in more direct ways and hardly any major
company has US interests only, the game is more interesting and the political
thinkers and lobbyists are yet to catchup to this new reality.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
In fairness the Atlantis expedition was a very international team.

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airza
How do you complain about the decade of war and then in the same article
complain about countries that the president didn't go to war with? The unique
insanity of trying to blame a declining empire on such recent actions... does
this happen outside of US politics?

~~~
fredley
I don't think there's any blaming or complaining in this article. It's merely
statements of America's in/actions, and the global perceptions of them over
the last 15 years.

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charlesray
This article feels like it should have been written by a Redditor, not a real
BBC journalist.

~~~
dghf
In particular, every paragraph save two comprises a single sentence. It does
read like someone took a list of bullet points, removed the bullets and called
it an article.

~~~
moron4hire
I've noticed, this is a growing style trend in British journalism. At least
the sentences here are longer. The few times I've accidentally ended up on the
Daily Mail, it's been infuriating trying to read their Sesame Street-level
sentences.

~~~
Jdoemk2
While I dislike the Daily Mail I actually like their writing style when I'm
just looking for a simple article on a specific event/topic I'm ill-informed
about. They condense and prioritise the most important information clearly,
better than most journalistic sources.

In fact when I had to write copy during my first startup job the founder told
me to look at how the DM write to see how to communicate simply.

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jgreen10
The three major powers in the world today are the US, the EU, and China. The
trade that makes them world powers also makes military conflicts between them
unthinkable. The US needs to focus on maintaining its economic superiority and
not waste its time on fighting the peanut gallery. So far it is doing a pretty
good job, or rather, not as bad a job as the other two.

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nabla9
Great powers often decline from inside-out. It's reasons outside them just
assist the process.

Most empires do not truly collapse. They just decline and change into
something else, often parts of other empires. British Empire is now small part
of power structure in its ex-colony. If you join British Empire and American
hegemony together, get 400 years of expanding Anglo-Saxon culture with
internal power shifts (like different dynasties in China).

In the "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers", Kennedy argues that all
Western powers in last 500 years are drawn into strategic entanglements that
force them to spend more of their GDP on defense. This leads to domestic
underinvestment. First the great power experiences relative economic decline,
then its rivals start to challenge it. Then wars bankrupt it.

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netcan
The issue with these "economic decline" stories and speculations is that
"decline" is never defined in any kind of useful way. So, arguments tend to
rise with people talking past each other because they are using a different
idea of what axis the decline is moving along.

Are we talking about the power to dictate trade terms or monopolize trade
routes? This is a lot less important than in the 17th century. Do they mean
cultural influence? I can report as a European that I understand US politics
better than my own country's. I watch more US movies than al else combined. Do
they mean "highest GDP?" Military power? the ability to be the "world
Policeman?"

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leichtgewicht
The wealth of the united states has been concentrated to very few people in
the past 20 years. Those people are owners of multinational conglomerates that
don't give much about borders anyways. Where the U.S. as a state used to be a
driving force of those money horses, it is now a glorified container for the
US defence department. The state(country) officials are allowed to fight as
long as the bottom line of the 1%(0.1%) is not endangered...

------
narrator
Joseph A. Tainter had the best theory about empire collapse. The empire
usually has some way of making an economic profit. They exploit it till it
starts returning negative returns and then they try all kinds of
counterproductive things that only make things more complicated to try and
save that little scheme they've got going.

~~~
blumkvist
Yeah, but while others exploited natural resources or other things that
decrease in volume over time, the US exploits currency, which only increases
over time.

~~~
narrator
Rome did not collapse because of natural resource problems. Neither did
Byzantium. They collapsed because their civilizational business model started
generating negative marginal returns. This can happen for environmental
reasons or it can happen for other reason.

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a3n
And if this is a problem, why _aren 't_ other countries taking up the role?

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scrrr
Well, for me USA is still great. For cultural reasons mostly(, because I'm
already from a rich country). For instance, I'd like to go and work in Silicon
Valley for a while. If I could get a Visa. ;)

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kushti
No Ferguson/Baltimore mentioned nor fast growth of govt. debt (
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+government+debt&lk=4...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+government+debt&lk=4&num=2)
, log scale by default!). It seems from the article the biggest problem of the
country it doesn't kill so easily people owned by "dictators" anymore. Such a
brutal western crap is definitely a huge problem itself.

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finnjohnsen2
A part of me hope they vote in a republican again. ISIS gotta go.

That third Bush maybe...?

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higherpurpose
tl;dr US should attack other countries more.

~~~
honest_joe
Not really. US is a powerhouse because it attracts zillions of bright minds
with the quality of live and opportunities (recently that got fucked up
because of corporations). The language is relatively simple, the culture is
welcoming, the landmass is beautiful and there are not so many crowded cities
/ places.

If you are a "skilled" person of foreign nationality would you rather go to
the US or China if you would have an option ?

~~~
saiya-jin
neither, if I would be non-european, I would choose either europe or
australia. better quality of life, more personal freedom (yes, compared to US,
the land of free), and just a more interesting places to be (EU culture
diversity is still astonishing to me even though I live here 34 years already,
Australia has all south east asia and great barrier reef just next to it,
which are amazing places to explore)

~~~
honest_joe
But that's because you are not looking to immigrate. But there are countless
of others. And Europe is heterogenous and not very welcoming .

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justwannasing
It's been about three years since I've seen an article like this. I guess
we'll see another in about three more years.

~~~
superplussed
I'm 43 years old, I can remember seeing articles like this back to my teenage
years.

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happyscrappy
The thing that is ignored and has to be ignored or you would not have a story,
is the near total alignment of the entire West. Economically, militarily and
culturally the West is absolutely the dominant force, and that is a good
thing.

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vinay_ys
And BBC is showing it's racist and colonialist thinking colors more and more
these days. Such propaganda doesn't bode well for their brand reputation.

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crdoconnor
> _Democrats with reservations about free trade_ have tried to sabotage the
> Trans-Pacific Partnership, the biggest trade deal since Nafta.

Well that's a great big lie. It's Democrats who are concerned about giving
corporations carte blanche to sue in secret courts for loss of expected
profits.

