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Well, it's a simple fact of history that every nation will eventualy fall, due to whatever reasons. For pretty much the last century, the United States has been the nation on Earth. But that won't last forever.

How do you, personaly, see the US falling? By which I mean either breaking up as a nation, or simply falling from it's position of dominance. Will it be a Cold War, which the US loses? A civil war? Invasion?

In a related question, which nation/aliance of nations do you think would replace the US as the dominant power?

I see a civil war. After the last Bush, I think it's only a matter of time. One of our founding fathers said a revolution/civil war is good to have every so often. If the US remained relativly intact afterwards the government would probably be reorganized. Right now, not enough people care, but I wouldn't be suprised if it happened in my lifetime.

I think Japan would take over as dominant economic force with Europe becoming the strongest country in terms of military power.

By the time the US falls, I'll hopefully be in Australia.

A civil war is unlikely, while a slow decline of economic and political strength relative to China is likely. This will be helped by the effects of declining oil production, and the resulting chaos in western economies (China won't be as badly affected, due to its greater reliance on coal). Japan is strong economically, but it doesn't have the military (or the inclination to develop one) to be a world power.

Blackstar, I'm not sure why you refer to Europe as a "country".

Right now I'd say that it will be a religious thing. A section of the US population is mounting a well funded and determined attack on science education, and sooner or later I suspect they will succeed.

The US position depends hugely on science and technology; as their science base begins to erode they'll gradually find that all the best research establishments are in foreign countries, and all the cutting edge technologies are in China, Russia, or wherever.

As that happens I suspect their trading partners will gradually start to switch allegiances, and they'll find their economy stagnating and then eroding away into a fraction of what it is.

And then there will be a watershed crisis - a US version of the Suez Canal thing, where they will look around and suddenly realise that what they have to say about the world doesn't really matter that much any more. And then there will be a gentle slide into obscurity.

Captain Seafort wrote:Blackstar, I'm not sure why you refer to Europe as a "country".

They've got that union now. I'm not sure how else to describe it.

Everyone will be so sad when I die, that the nation will go into chaos.

Jamaica will be the worlds next super power, trust me.

ChakatBlackstar wrote:

Captain Seafort wrote:Blackstar, I'm not sure why you refer to Europe as a "country".

They've got that union now. I'm not sure how else to describe it.

"Continent"? "Alliance"? The term "country" refers to a sovereign entity, which the EU is not.

They've got that union now. I'm not sure how else to describe it.

The European Union is most certainly not a country. It's more of an alliance. There's virtualy no chance of the EU actualy becoming a country of it's own.

Then why not call it a European Alliance? The US is a Union, it's a country. So I figured, Europe is a union that must mean it's a country. What exactly is the European Union for then?

ChakatBlackstar wrote:Then why not call it a European Alliance? The US is a Union, it's a country. So I figured, Europe is a union that must mean it's a country. What exactly is the European Union for then?

To cause trouble mostly. It's a mechanism by which unelected bureaucrats tell elected politicians what to do, and inflict as many unnecessary regulations as possible on the various member states. Also, they have a habit of telling countries to repeat referendums if they get the answer wrong, as Rochey will be able to explain far better than I.

Captain Seafort wrote:

ChakatBlackstar wrote:Then why not call it a European Alliance? The US is a Union, it's a country. So I figured, Europe is a union that must mean it's a country. What exactly is the European Union for then?

To cause trouble mostly. It's a mechanism by which unelected bureaucrats tell elected politicians what to do, and inflict as many unnecessary regulations as possible on the various member states. Also, they have a habit of telling countries to repeat referendums if they get the answer wrong, as Rochey will be able to explain far better than I.

So it is a government then. All I really know about the EU is what you just said, and what was in this video

No, it isn't a government - a government is a characteristic of a sovereign state. The EU is not a sovereign state, ergo it cannot be a government. What it is is a multinational entity to enable multiple countries to cooperate and coordinate their actions on issues that affect them all. It has a worrying and irritating habit of pretending it is a government however, which makes the confusion understandable

Captain Seafort wrote:No, it isn't a government - a government is a characteristic of a sovereign state. The EU is not a sovereign state, ergo it cannot be a government. What it is is a multinational entity to enable multiple countries to cooperate and coordinate their actions on issues that affect them all. It has a worrying and irritating habit of pretending it is a government however, which makes the confusion understandable

Oh, good. So it's not compleatly my fault for not understanding. But wait...isn't that what the UN does? The whole cooperate and coordinate stuff?

To an extent the EU is a small-scale UN. The major difference is that the UN was designed like that, while the EU started out as a free trade zone and has suffered from continual mission creep to the extent that a lot of the power-grabbing bureaucrats involved now (and too many politicians) like to pretend that it's a sovereign entity.

The US will ultimately consume itself in civil war I reckon, and Graham is prolly right, it will have alot to do with religion. I've seen how violent religious extreemists can be, of any religion, its nothing but trouble...or perhaps some sort of economic war that leads to a huge recession (which I reckon is fast approaching) and then irreperable damage.