Long story short: America needs to sort out its shit back home. (Since I started writing this long post, that has already been brought up in the thread. Good. I agree!) Domestic problems have caused the current inability to effectively project power. Solve the domestic problems, and the geopolitical weakness is a thing of the past.
How one handles a renewed position of geopolitical strength is another matter, but -- as I'll argue below -- America has already made that decision, and reversing its choice would be both difficult and
extremely costly (possibly fatal).
[The contents of this post will no doubt be familiar to
@Zyobot and
@CastilloVerde. Meanwhile,
@Earl may be interested in this, because it elaborates on -- and provides context for -- my thoughts on some topics we've discussed of late.]
First of all, it is essential to note that America has not magically weakened and withered. Rather, America is currently not actualising its true potential, due to a wide array of internal problems and contradictions.
Some of these are harder to solve than others, but they
can all be solved. Moreover, I fully expect that they
will be solved. Although not, perhaps, in a pleasant and peaceful manner. The key development that must occur, after all, is the fall of the current establishment (which has caused the problems) and the ascent of a populist opposition (which has, at present, not yet fully coalesced). The opposition will grow more radical as time passes and things get more pressing and dire. This will make the establishment increasingly fearful of massive reprisals against them if they ever relinquish power. The result is that power will have to be forcibly wrested away from them, which makes the subsequent exacting of bloody vengeance a certainty.
This means that for America, the shape of the rest of this century is: "
things get worse and worse, political animosity deepens further and further, and ultimately the opposition seizes power -- probably by a measure of force -- and the former establishment gets persecuted pretty ruthlessly."
This is of course an unpleasant prospect, but the positive news is that once this is all done, American weakness will decidely be a thing of the past. The harmful policies of the current establishment will be reversed (if only because everything the current establishment does will be regarded as "the wrong thing" by default).
It should be noted as well that America is in a better position than most other powers. So even as most of this century can be summarised as "things get worse",
this is true for everybody. The global system is failing. And America is, in fact, in the best position to get its act together again in the direct aftermath. All of America's issues
can be solved relatively easily, and that's not true for most other powers. It
will happen, too, if and when the USA finally gets its "house in order". The primary obstacle to this is the (currently worsening) political division, which prevents the rise of a "problem-solving coalition". That development, however, cannot be held off forever (much as the current elite would like that, because it will spell their undoing, and they know it).
I will now attempt to define the problems Amarica has to overcome. Then, I'll demonstrate that these (or similar, and often worse) problems afflict all possible competitors as well. Finally, I'll outline what this means for America's long-term geopolitical role.
AMERICAN PROBLEMS
Although they can (and, I believe, will) be solved, the domestic problems of the USA
are very serious. It's just that they are social and political problems, which can be addressed by alterations to core policy. America hasn't suddenly become weak. It's just carrying an enormous burden (of purely domestic origins), which prevents the USA from effectively swinging its fists internationally. Resolve the domestic issues, and you drop the burden, which frees up your fists for active use. Then, the ability to project power globally is regained.
The domestic issues can be listed as follows:
1. Demographic division. The establishment plays various ethnic and socio-economic groups off against each other. The nature of the two-party system has facilitated this kind of thinking. Indeed, the establishment firmly controls the party machines of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Fortunately, America's "demographic division" has a real chance of actually being resolved
without ethnic cleansing. That's because currently, the establishment plays divided-and-conquer by offering patronage to ethnic minorities. The economic mis-management will make that increasingly unaffordable. This will eventually cause blacks and hispanics to cross over to the populist opposition. At that point, you
have your "problem-solving coalition". (AKA the "kick those bastards out of power" coalition.)
2. The loss of domestic industry and manufacturing. This is the main
structural weakness, which has created an obvious strategic vulnerability. It is also tied to big economic weakness (it fucks up your trade balance), but that's easier to quickly rectify via altered policy. The decay of industry and manufacturing, cannot be rapidly reversed even if policy is altered immediately. It takes time to build that back up (both the physical infrastructure, and the training of the people involved -- if you stop doing something for a full generation, much of the know-how evaporates.) It can and will be resolved through economic protectionism, yes, but fully "bouncing back" will take some time. If you really work at training a new generation of workers for a restored American domestic industry, you'll be fully back up to speed within 20 years.
3. Trade balance issues. Also easy to solve with economic protectionism.
4. Unreliable currency, constant debasement of the dollar (devaluation due to monetary inflation), terribly fiscal policy. Can only be structurally solved by adopting a hard currency, e.g. a 100% gold standard. (Some equally effective substitute is fine, although I can think of none.)
5. Ridiculous over-spending to the tune of many trillions, resulting in a debt-ridden government beholden to foreign powers. Can be easily solved by constitutionally outlawing all deficit spending and the very notion of a public debt. The existing debt can be nixed in less legal ways. As I'll outline below, I expect world-wide turmoil as the current global economic system fails, at which point the USA can simply declare all its foreign debt null and void. Domestic debt can mostly be nullified, too, because it's mostly held by (agencies of) the establishment, which can be crudely and ruthlessly nationalised/seized by the populist opposition once they sweep into power. (This is also why I expect the populist movement to ultimately adopt the "jubilee" -- the unilateral nixing of all debt that the common people owe to the elite -- as a key plank of their platform.)
6. All sorts of social radicalism (e.g. various forms of far-left agitation), and deviant behaviour that gets normalised (e.g. LGBT-activists who feel paedophilia belongs to their alphabet soup). These are all excesses derived from a warped, destabilised society. These problems are therefore self-correcting if the above issues are addressed. (Not that they won't get considerable 'help': expect the populist movement to be socially conservative, while most "degenerates" rely on the patronage of the elite to exist. More than a few will undoubtedly be purged, when the time comes.) Additionally, I'd like to note that most "radicalisms" (Marxism, SJW bullshit...) have all the traits of religious cultism, and indeed were produced by a society in which organised religion was maginalised. We can observe that religiosity in the West is beginning to increase again, which means that the incoherent cultism of Modernity is on the way out. (Although it'll no doubt terminate in a final orgy of depravity.)
7. The American military has become organisationally top-heavy and ineffective. It requires a major overhaul, which will then require "field testing" by way of one or more large-scale wars. I'd compare the current American military to the Roman military in the pre-legion days, when the manipular system was used. They defeated the Helenistic states and Carthage with that, same as America triumphed in the World Wars. But that system is now stale. All powers face this problem, and bullshit reforms along the margins won't cut it. Someone needs to carry out the equivalent of the Marian reforms (which established the Roman Legionary system, which was subsequenly the foremost military power on the Western end of Eurasia). I cannot predict what this would involve, but I'd tentatively guess that it would entail the
complete abolition of the separate service branches, and a full re-organisation into "combined operations groups" of some sort. (But I might be way off the mark there!)
These, then, are the main problems America presently faces. The American inability to project power abroad is due to the deletrious effects of these factors -- and will thus be resolved once these factors are addressed. All of them must be solved domestically; America's problems are internal. This will be a hard and bloody job, but I have outlined why I think America will be up to this task. Now, I'll outline why I think most rival powers are
not.
EUROPEAN PROBLEMS
First of all, and most crucially, Europe cannot defuse its demographic time bomb. Ethnic divisions in the USA are deliberately manufactured by the establishment ("race baiting"). The divisions will mostly cease to exist once the economic situation gets so bad that the elite can no longer afford to just buy the loyality of various minorities. In Europe, things are very different. The main minority group is an amalgamation of Muslim immigrants, whose cultural integration into the host society has generally been an abject failure. As socio-economic tensions mount globally, Europe
cannot effectively adopt the American "broad anti-establishment coalition" model that I have outlined. The divide in Europe is not manufactured; it is
real. The Muslims, by and large, want Europe to "just" become Islamic. The native working class, however, wants the Muslims to stop being Islamic, and to assimilate. These stances cannot be reconciled, at least not within mere decades.
Therefore, the American future is increasing social dissatisfaction and oppression, culminating in a broad populist uprising (which ends up winning). The Western European future, meanwhile, is bloody sectarian conflict. Imagine the Troubles, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and ISIS-like mini-caliphates in every major city. Imagine this state of affairs covering all of Western Europe. By comparison, America has a soft landing ahead!
In addition, while much is made of the American public debt, Europe is actually worse off in that regard. A lot of it is hidden (not accidentally!) in the structural bureaucracy of the EU, but the Debt Crisis has revealed to the critical observer how bad things are. Europe worked itself into a ludicrous collecive debt to prevent the fiscally unsound countries from collapsing (since that would hae collapsed the entire Eurozone). The reality is that when the Euro was introduced, it was presented as if all Europe was adopting the
Deutschmark. In reality, all Europe has adopted the
Lira.
The loss of domestic industry and manufacturing, as well as the trade balance issues, are also generally worse for Europe than for the USA. Europe has seen its share of the world economy shink and shrink -- doing far worse than America, in real terms.
European levels of government over-spending are likewise worse than in America, as is the extent of deletrious social and cultural "radicalisms". At least in Western Europe. (Although please note that the recent developments in Ukraine have essentially killed the Polish-Hungarian threat to ever step out of the EU, because they're afraid to stand alone in the cold, now. Which means they can be 'held hostage' by Brussels and forced to stop resisting cosmopolitan progressivism.)
The European military effort is a joke, too. Even current attempts to rectify this betray the fundamental weakness. France wants an EU army, but France means by that what it has always meant: a
French army with EU flags. Germany has already given the clearest possible "NEIN!" to that, by announcing its own -- national -- plan to build up their own military. Therefore, Europe will remain a collection of countries with separate armies. This means the EU will never be a military powerhouse that can effectively compete against far more unified competitors. (The kind of comprehensive refoms that I've suggested America should carry out, for instance, aren't just
difficult for the EU. They are
impossible. That kind of thing requires a unified, fully integrated structure. Europe has rejected that, even under the threat of Russian nukes. That says it all, doesn't it?)
Ultimately, though, we circle back to the demographic issue. Even though the European problems are actually worse than the American ones, they
could be solved. This would require concerted action, though, which is evidently not in the cards. The EU is a bureaucratic mess, and offers no solution to the issues. The only theoretical hope would like with a broad populist revolt (electoral or otherwise). Unlike in America, though, the European populists are typically anti-union. Their success could lead certain specific European countries to thrive, but would remove any hope for Europe as a whole to function as a geopolitical power bloc. The USA is one union, and any future civil conflict would be a 'social war' of the irate masses against the entrenched elite. Europe, however, consists of distinct nations, and as it turns out, cannot be forged into a coherent union.
The more pressing demographic problem, though, is the ultimate consequence of massive waves of non-Western immigration. This has created a separate Muslim under-class, which cannot be reconciled with the native under-class. While both have reason to want to see the elite collapse, their interests are fundamentally opposed. This prevents either faction from effectively overthrowing the elite and imposing a new order. The future in America is a social conflict that can be
won, after which the pressing issues can actually be solved. The future in Europe is ethnic and sectarian strife against a backdrop of chaotic collapse, with no real winners, only various degrees of 'loser'. And the pressing issues cannot be adequately addressed at all.
If there is to be any hope in Europe, it'll have to come from Eastern Europe. From the Visegrád Group, and/or a potential scessor structure to it. The current Russian aggression has de-fanged this bloc, but Eastern Europe is still far more ethnically homegeneous and culturally conservative than Wstern Europe. Moreover, it is used to 'hard times', whereas the pampered idiots who form the majority in Western Europe will almost certainly be unable to handle the coming years of deprivation. As Western Europe and Russia are both set for a crash, Eastern Europe could ultimately benefit and assume a leading position. Quite possibly hand-in-hand with the resurgent USA.
RUSSIAN PROBLEMS
I'm sorry, when I alluded to Russia being set to crash and burn, I got a bit ahead of myself. To elaborate: we don't have to take Russia altogether too seriously, as a threat. Sure, nukes are scary no matter who has them. But beyond the specific issue of MAD... how strong is Russia? Answer: weak. Weeeeeaaaaaaaak. Structurally deficient. Essentially doomed. And Putin has just made things worse.
As I've often noted: people easily forget how bad things were in the '90s. Russia was literally on the verge of collapse for a while, there. Putin managed to hold it together by essentially creating a dictatorship. He did that by making a bargain with various power-players. They backed him, he crushed their rivals, and they all shared in the loot. This is an unstable arrangement at best, and purely predicated on plunder. There is
no way to improve the system, because that cuts back on the loot, and then the gangsters turn on each other. So Putin has essentially just arrested -- frozen -- Russia's decay. He
has taken various steps to strengthen Russia... but those are only steps which are inherently based on autocratic leadership by one man.
Once that man is gone, it's extremely doubtful that someone else can just step into that role. Historically, that almost never works out. Practically all leaders of Putin's type have faced the standard succession problem. Assuming it'll be different this time is going against the odds. And as I said: Putin also hasn't structurally solved the underlying problems that Russia faced before he came to power. It's more like his regime is forcibly keeping things in order. That, too, is usually the set-up for an implosion once the key figure is ultimately removed.
The only way to secure a stable succession in an autocratic system with any degree of reliability has, historically speaking, been monarchism. And even that can go wrong, if the kid just isn't up to it. And Putin doesn't even have
that. (I've argued that a Romanov restoration might be a useful tool in realising legitimacy and continuation of government in Russia, but Putin hasn't made moves in that direction, and with his latest actions, it seems less plausible than ever.)
Conclusion: when Putin dies, his "autocratic pause" of Russia's collapse comes to an end, and Russia not only goes on where the '90s left off, but also faces a civil war (more or less) between the gangster(-ish) factions of Putin's regime,
and the aftermath of autocracy (e.g. fundamental distrust of all institutions, entrenched bureaucratic corruption), which would make it nigh-impossible for any would-be democratic faction to enact meaningful reform. Then there's the economic woes, which are made worse by the new sanctions. Russia will be very poor, and desperately poor people will accept all sorts of terrible things from 'strong' leaders who promise change. (But see again: struggle for power, civil war.)
And finally, there's the separatism. Ukraine, of course, but there are various other regions in Russia who'd split off if given the chance. Many of these have been beaten down by Putin and are marginal now, but when things go chaotic again, there is little doubt that popular discontent will cause such movements to flourish again. In addition to this, Russia has become increasingly dependent on China, and this is getting far worse in the wake of recent events. In reality, Russia is now a junior partner to China. Russia, however, is clearly unwilling to just roll over and accept such an inferior status. Their whole policy for the Putin era has been to categorically refuse that line of thinking. The Chinese aren't kind to their vassals, and that's what it would be: vassalage. (And even if they
were kind: Russia clearly just isn't prepared to embrace the indignity of such a "lesser station".)
At most, Russia wants equal partnership with China, and it just won't get that. Which means that China will prop up Russia's regime for as long as it is expedient, but when things go pear-shaped, China has no reason to
keep propping them up. China is already applying its "demographic strategy" to the Russian Far East: moving in loads of Chinese. Putin is in a difficult position regarding that, because he's increasingly dependent on China for his economy to keep functioning. So his only alternative has been to aggressively encourage more Russians to settle there, keeping the region "Russian". Results have been mixed, at best.
Once Putin dies and Russia destabilises, you may safely assume China will more to "restore order" in the Russian Far East. Russia has a population of a good 145 million people, of which a mere 35 million live East of the Urals. Furthermore, demographic trends consistently show population flow from Asiatic Russia to European Russia -- not the other way around. Meanwhile, China has 1.42
billion people. Do the math. You don't stand a chance against that kind of demography. China won't even have to conquer. Soon enough, the ethnic Chinese in the Russian Far East will comfortaly outnumber the ethnic Russians. They can just petition for annexation, and it'll be a done deal.
I see China's expansion of power into Russia as a succession (and ultimately amalgamation) of multiple arrangements -- both economic and otherwise. Their existing demographic policy, though, clearly indicates that they are aiming for eventual annexation of at least certain regions. Most obviously, the parts of old Manchuria that China once owned -- but I think they'll go for considerably more, if Russia collapses as badly as I believe it will.
Russia, as such, doesn't really stand much of a chance. It's already fucked, and while Putin has staved off the collapse, he has also assured that it's going to be
bad when it finally does happen. As always, the neocons currently shrieking about a "new Cold War" are wrong about everything. Russia isn't rising again. This invasion of Ukraine is the last gasp of a dying national empire, already a pathetic shell of its former self, and desperately trying to stay "scary".
Russia is less of an imperial power now than Britain was after World War II. And Russia has misbehaved so terribly that even a commonwealth won't be in the cards when it's all over. Russia is a wrecked has-been, doomed to fall prey to stronger powers. They played the game, but they chose the worst possible system (communism), and it cost them. They played... and they lost.
CHINESE PROBLEMS
Which brings us to the
real rival, the true opponent. If America is Rome, then China is Persia. The West and the East, forever aligned against each other. Even their problems are similar. China, obviously, has a very
different solution to its issues regarding ethnic minorities. Side-stepping the morality of such for a moment, there can be little doubt that the Chinese approach will -- in the long term -- be just as effective as the American solution that I've predicted.
The
other demographic problem of the developed world, however, is set to hit china pretty hard. I refer to the "greying" of the developed world: the dropped birth-rate, and the resulting -- historically disproportionate -- relation between the amount of non-working old people and working young people. I haven't previously mentioned this, because we're all in the same boat when it comes to that. All the greater powers (or would-be powers) have to deal with this. China, however, is in for a particularly rough ride in this particular context. Their foolish on-child policy has set them up for a load of grief, and although they're trying to correct that now -- they're already too late to possibly correct this mounting demography problem. They're heading for a time of troubles because of it.
This goes hand-in-hand with (ironically) the fact that the Chinese economy has grown so enormously. As a result, we see rising affluence. This is causing rising disontent among the young. Those don't remember the Bad Old Days, so instead of just being grateful not to live back then, they've only seen the pie getting bigger and bigger during their lives, and they want a bigger slice! These two factors will co-incide when the 'greying' of China will put increasing financial pressure on exactly that generation which actually already feels ill-served. Because of this, while I am fairly optimistic about the prospects for China-as-a-Great-Power, I expect that the current regime may well get "replaced". (I expect a 'Young Chinamen' coup, overthrowing the regime, instating a sort of no-pretenses legalism with a heavy dose of national/imperial pride.... and a policy of industrially murdering all senior citizens who can't pay for their own retirement.)
One may expect that sort of thing when the pressure really mounts -- which connects back to the failure of the current economic system. Presently, China is propping up its own biggest export market by funding the US public debt. That is also the reason why the USA and China are hesitant to really go toe-to-toe. A real conflict (even a purely economic one, but fought hard) is bound to be devastating to both sides. As I mentioned, if the USA cuts off Chinese trade, China loses its biggest export market... but the USA can't magically restore its own industrial capacity, so it would cause very hard times for a while. And the USA can declare its debt to China null and void, but this means China ceases to fund the US public debt, which causes the USA to go into immediate insolvency. A true coflict, under these conditions, can know only losers.
However... once the current global economic order truly begins to collapse, all bets are off. That will cause chaotic uphavals on
both sides of the Pacific. By that time, I expect China to really solidify its control over all of the Russian Far East (and probably extending quite a bit in-land). As for when this happens: I don't know how quickly the economic developments will go. It'll be well before the end of the century, though. Probably more like mid-century. I previously mentioned the current regime in China being on borrowed time, and that I expect a 'young guard' regime that swerves to neo-legalism to assume control. The economic crisis I have described would be
just the sort of thing that leads to the current regime collapsing. And the subsequent wars of aggression would be
just the sort of thing the new regime would do.
Such wars wouldn't just extend to (former?) Russian territories, either. With the USA similarly in turmoil (and Europe even worse off), China will not hesitate to take Taiwan. And Korea. And maybe try for Japan while they're at it. (Hell, if there's one country fucked even
worse by the "greying" problem...) Make no mistakes about that. In a practical sense, America has already given up on Taiwan,
now. The Straits have effectively been lost to China, and the only reason a Chinese invasion of Taiwan hasn't happened yet is because doing so would still cause major economic conflict. In China invades Taiwan, America closes its borders to all Chinese goods. Europe, too, probably. Both will probably seize all Chinese property and wealthy in America and Europe. And both will declare their public debt to China null and void, on the grounds that China has become a pirate state. There will be no war, but the above results would hurt China more than gaining Taiwan would benefit China. That's why they wait.
(And it would hurt the West just as much, which is why they'll never do it just to deter China. And once the time comes where the West may actually do it, the economy is already so screwed that the effects no longer really register... on either side. Which is why the Populists in America, once they seize powrr, will actually be willing to
take these kinds of steps.)
China has taken note of everything happening in regards to Ukraine, and is drawing inevitable conclusions from the Western refusal to act. China has major economic reasons not to invade Taiwan at present, but once the time comes that it's opportune to them, they will not hesitate. It may even happen
before the world economy really goes to shit. When the Western economies get so bad, and their currency so devalued, that Chinese exports begin to dwindle and the payments on the public debt that the West owes to China become practically worthless.... that's when such steps become opportune to China. (Of course, by then, the global economy is already sinking, and it won't be all that long until you get to rock bottom.)
ONE'S PLACE IN THE WORLD
There can be little doubt, then, that China will once again be the "Middle Kingdom", a great empire of this Earth. The question is how the USA positions itself, although I feel that the question has alredy been answered. There are theoretically two options available: retreat, or advance. That is to say -- the USA can either try to be "the old Republic", modest and isolationist, actively shirking the realities of hegemony... or the USA can become the Empire, and rule roughly half the world. (With China, obviously, dominating the other half.)
The truth is, America has already chosen, and it has chosen Empire. It did this, perhaps as early as the Spanish-American War. But certainly it consolidated its choice when it interfered deciseively in the World Wars. Perhaps inteference in the Second World War should be "forgiven", in that sense, for obvious reasons. But we must not forget that the Second World War (as we know it, at least) was entirely the consequence of the First World War's conclusion. And that conclusion was shaped by the inteference of America. Not just by America's ultimate military participation, but also by its preceding financial-economic participation. If the USA had remained purely and entirely neutral, non-inteventionist, extending n loans or support of any kind to either side... then the Central Powers would have won in late 1916. The Entente would simply have collapsed economically, ending the war.
We must, in this, compare America to ancient Rome -- where men such as Cato argued fiercely against Hellenistic influences, and wished for Rome to withdraw from all involvement in the affairs of the squabbling (but ancient and respected) states of the Hellenic East. Had this sort of advice been heeded, Rome would have remained an Italian state. The Republic that it once was. But Rome rejected that course, became involved.... became the hegemon. Overthrew the states of Macedon and Carthage in successive wars, as the USA defeated Germany and Japan. The consequence is that the defeated can no longer make a play for dominance. They tried, the lost. Their chance has come and gone. Like Rome, America defeated all potential Western Hegemons.
The burden of that is that you remain, and you actually have to
be the hegemon. I know there are people here who fiercely believe that America should be "a Republic, not an Empire". And in my heart, I am also of Cato's party. And I, too, love the old republic more than the great beast of empire. But the choice has been made. To reject it now, to withdraw after all, poses an enormous risk. There is no other possible hegemon in the West. America
saw to that, and thoroughly. Europe cannot manage it (where once, Germany could have forged its own
Mitteleuropa). And Russia has destroyed itself via the poison of communism, of which gangsterism is a natural aftermath. (But we must note that if America had stayed entirely out of the Great War, it would have ended
before the Russian Revolution...)
This means that if America withdraws, the world belongs to China. The whole world, except the USA, which will be effectively confined to its own borders. Forced to withdraw into its own version of
Sakoku. In practice, that kind of stifling reality would kill the old republic anyway. What then remains is not worth living for.
Now, then. The future is clear. America has to solve its domestic problems, and then it has to step into the role it has already chosen for itself. To expand, to extend the
imperium to cover the entire 'West'. To formalise the "Pax Americana", and to unify the entire civilisation within one political frame-work. This is the Universal Empire, the civilisation-state. America has made sure that it is the only power left in the West that can fill this role, and so it
must fill this role. (And if it doesn't actually want to... so much the better. Reluctant empires are typically the least oppressive ones.)