Do you think we are witnessing the end of American preeminence?

I certainly hope not. Four years is a long time to wait to fix things-if we are still here.

If so, I'm just glad it happened while a Liebral was in the Whitehouse..,

No

yeah in 15 years time india and china will overtake in military and economy.

yes china's military is going through a rapid modernisation (they have frigging stealth UCAVS!!!!!!!!!!)

india has one aircrat carrier even though china's going to have 3.

Yes, we have given away our manufacturing capacity. WW2 was won by the American production machine.

We are not able to maintain our infrastructure much less rebuild in the event of military or natural devastation. Sadly, thanks to the policies of the past 30 years we are on our way to third world status, same as the old USSR-Afghanistan did them in and we are foolishly on the same path.

As long as there's a thread in the world, we will remain active as a super power. I however afraid we will reach a point when we can't pay our foreign debt (China) when foreign countries decide to threat us to pay it in full as a way to stir things up more. We will then be on their sanction lists.

I don't afraid external threads - we are united on that. I afraid our internal threads that we render us powerless to take care of our external threads. This is the biggest problem of them all.

Sadly this question wouldn't have even occurred to you during the 90's. 8 years of the current debacle has depressed this once great country.

Naw! Yer probably too blind!

Joke...ha ha! Just a reminder that the USA's problems are no glory to any other country, just in case you are not an American. You're probably an American and I know that I'm not.

Seriously, I think that the USA made a serious mistake in rejoicing too superficially over the fall of the Soviet Union. I think that Americans high and low took it too much as a ratification of all American ways and deeds. Maybe now some people in other countries will be looking at the USA and making the same mistake as the Americans did in the late eighties and into the nineties.

The USA has about 5% of the world's population and maybe a similar fraction of the land. Neither are uniquely valuable. Evaluating the USA as Americans have come to evaluate stocks, it is plain to see that any American preeminence was always fated to be temporary.

I hope that Americans can take a setback. "Chasing losses" is a good way to get really (expletive deleted by writer)-ed.

At this time, we are teetering. Which is why i voted for Obama~ to pull us back from the edge of that cliff.

Militarily we will remain a superpower. Economically, I think we've got about 20 years before we're irrelevant.

Yes. We were comfortable being the world's policemen as long as it didn't cost us to much in blood or treasure. We no longer have the will or the financial ability to sustain our empire. It has cost us too much. We are essentially in the same position Britain was in the early to mid-20th century.