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Comment by pwinnski | Hacker News Reader

I think the assumption that the US is a preferable superpower--likely true at one point--is what led to the US behaving increasingly badly, taking the wrong side of those trade-offs, to the point that I can think of several candidates I would prefer to the US as a world superpower--including no world superpower at all!

There aren't many that are always good, or always bad, but it's naive to suggest that "there aren't good guys or bad guys." No matter where in the world you are, you're in no danger of being shot by the Swiss government. That's a statement that's not true of the US, even in the US!

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> I can think of several candidates I would prefer to the US as a world superpower--including no world superpower at all!

No, you really really don't want this. I don't know what utopian partnership of nations you have in mind, but what you will get is World War 1 remastered.

The previous US President is currently being investigated for leaking nuclear secrets. During his tenure, he went from being a reality TV star to having control over the most sophisticated nuclear arsenal in the world, with a system expressly designed to enable the President to have unilateral control over the launching of nuclear weapons.[0]

Currently, a large portion of the voting age US citizenry no longer believes in the peaceful transition of power. The highest instance of the US judicial system is under the control of specific authoritarian and religious elements for the foreseeable future. We can't know how the US will evolve next, but the picture doesn't seem really rosy at all. We don't know when the next reality TV star or populist politician will take control there, or which ideological movement will capture the institutions in the next few years. Given the country's history of intervening in other nations, we can only guess at what the consequences would then be for the rest of the world.

Given all of this, having no superpower would seem preferable.

[0]http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/11/18/the-president-and-...

The breakup of the US and diffusion of its ability to exert influence would be a net positive in my opinion. It would no doubt cause a lot of pain in the US though (as the loss of the USD as reserve currency would likely be a consequence).

China would just step in

Good guys or bad guys we all live under the threat of total nuclear annihilation at any moment - of which the US has been at the forefront of advancement from day 1.

Helluva Pandora’s Box.

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