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Comment by sykhic | Hacker News Reader

Japan does not have the capability to compete with Chinese naval power. Why do you think it’s unlikely that the US will go down? What time frame are you attributing this unlikelihood to take place in? I’m assuming you mean in the next few decades and not meaning a much larger time frame.

I have no expertise but it appears from my perspective that the US is in a state of imperial decline. I think this will accelerate in the coming decades. For me the canary in the coal mine event was Gulf War 1 when the US went around asking other countries to help pay for our war. Mercenary nation. There are lots of other signs of imperial decline as I see things but that event was very telling.

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> For me the canary in the coal mine event was Gulf War 1 when the US went around asking other countries to help pay for our war.

On the contrary I would say Gulf War 1 was the last example of the US empire operating as designed: a large coalition of westernized nations implicitly following the leadership in the US, in a network of institutions and alliances entirely built around the assumption of US supremacy.

IMO the second Gulf War was the first blow to the US-centric international system... and it was the US themselves who dealt that blow.

It's one thing asking allies to help fight a war and quite another asking them to pay for it. Japan famously was asked to pay $10 billion. It was disconcerting to see this as an American. Allegedly the war was worth fighting for America but I guess not worth America paying for it. We were willing to spill our blood but not open our wallets.

Ah, I didn’t remember that part of it. Added to my research list, thank you.

There are definitely signs of decline; I'm with you there. The problem is that there have been signs of decline before - leading up to the Civil War, the Great Depression, Vietnam. The question is, is this negative derivative at the moment the start of the Big Decline, or is it just a temporary downtrend?

I also fear that it's the start of the Big Decline, but I'm far from certain of that...

The “Big Decline” will be a Great Filter event, but the timeframe for that event is still uncertain. It is still inevitable, however.

From my perspective the decline has been going on since the end of the Reagan administration. There are a number of reasons for my belief but I think it has been steadily going on for 30 years now. Prior the Civil War Alexis de Tocqueville famously predicted the rise of America. After the war our dominance in the Western Hemisphere was solidified and at the beginning of the 20th century it was clear that resource rich America with its vast land mass was able to achieve scales of economy that no other nation could match. It was clear that we were still a rising power at that time.

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