The Coming end of the Western World may have to be postponed (America is NOT in decline)

American Thinker ^ | 10/17/2009 | Ethan Epstein

[SeekAndFind]

Review: When China Rules the World, by Martin Jacques

While the decades since the Vietnam War may be most known for their startling technological developments, they have also spawned a chic genre of literature: the ‘America is in Decline' tract. What started most prominently with the work of Paul Kennedy has turned into a veritable cottage industry. Tomes in this category have included Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, Bruce Horton's Decline and Fall, and, most recently, Fareed Zakaria's The End of America, which Barack Obama was famously photographed holding last summer. Some of these books argue that the decline is inevitable as a result of "cultural decadence," others argue decline is a result of "environmental devastation," and others still attribute the supposed decline to falling birthrates. In the 1980s and early 1990s, many of the more-economically oriented books of the genre argued that the West's decline was partially a result of the rise of Japan. Today, many are devoted to the proposition that western decline is linked to the rise of another Asian tiger: the People's Republic of China.

Into this presumably lucrative declinist field now enters Martin Jacques, and his new, hefty-looking tome, When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World. Jacques' volume, while obviously the result of serious scholarship (he name drops everyone from Confucius to Barack Obama), and fluidly written, has one grave problem: its persistent refusal to deal with facts that negate its thesis.

Jacques' argument has the benefit of being simple, if unoriginal: China, with its huge population, manufacturing might, and (alleged) technical prowess, is destined to surpass the United States midway through this century to become the world's leading economic power. In so doing, so-called Chinese values - stability, authoritarianism, collectivism - will eclipse the (allegedly now outmoded) "Western values" of human rights, democracy, and individualism. (Jacques et al. always forget to acknowledge that Japan, South Korea, India, and other Asian states have happily adopted the "Western" values of democracy and individual liberty.) The reasons for this shift, Jacques' argues, lie in the numbers.

Jacques opens his chapter, ‘China as an Economic Superpower' with some impressive sounding demographic figures, intended to hit home just how big, very big, in fact quite massive China really is. "When the United States began its take-off in 1870," Jacques notes, "its population was 40 million. By 1913 it had reached 98 million . . . In contrast, China's population was 963 million in 1978 when its take-off started in earnest: that is, twenty-four times that of the United States in 1870." These numbers are intended to wow us with their sheer size. And indeed, Jacques makes much of them: he argues that due to the size of China's population, the Middle Kingdom's domination of the world is all but inevitable.

Jacques makes two fundamental errors here. First, he ignores the fact that there is no evident correlation between population size and economic strength. Consider a few examples. Qatar (population 1,600,000) has a per-capita GDP of over $85,000. Luxembourg (population 493,000) has a per-capita GDP of $82,000, and Norway (population 4,800,000) boasts a per capita GDP of nearly $50,000. (One wonders where the breathless When Oslo Rules the World is.) China has a per capita GDP of less than $6,000, placing it below such economic heavyweights as Angola, Kazakhstan, and El Salvador. So despite the fact that China now has the third largest gross GDP in the world (at about a third the size of the United States), this, like the empty skyscrapers that crowd Shanghai's skyline, is merely an illusion of strength. China has certainly made laudable economic and social progress in the past decades, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of abject levels of poverty. That being said, China remains fundamentally poor. And while its economy continues to grow at a steady clip despite the global recession (though this is illusory as well: the growth is nearly entirely the result of government spending), China is facing a grave problem that will ultimately retard its ascension into the pantheon of truly prosperous countries.

This serious problem, forgotten by Jacques, is simply unavoidable, for it lies in the country's demographics. Simply put: China is growing old - and fast. (Decades of the one-child policy are to blame for this.) At least a third of the population of the Middle Kingdom will be over 60 by the middle of this century. While Shanghai, for example, is widely known as the exciting and dynamic center of capitalist China, it also has one of the oldest populations in the world: more than a fifth of the population is over 60, and by 2030, a full 40% of the population will be at in at least its sixth decade. The Center for Strategic Studies has demonstrated that by 2030, there will be 2.5 Chinese workers to support each retiree - by 2050, there will be a frightening 1.6 workers in that position. So while nattering nabobs in the West fret over aging populations in their countries, don't let's forget that in 2050, a full 438 million Chinese people will be at least 60 years old. For those keeping score, that's more people than the entire population of the United States. This is going to cause crushing - if not catastrophic - problems to the Chinese pension system, sap productivity, and strip the Chinese economy of capital needed for reinvestment.

Meanwhile, a recent report from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto predicts that China's huge labor force will begin to shrink in 2020. The very reason for China's tremendous success in the past few decades - its seemingly endless supply of teeming masses yearning to breathe factory air - is set to begin evaporating. At the same time, labor in China will become increasingly expensive, dissuading foreign companies from investing here. Little wonder that it has become a truism among more sensible academics and Sinowatchers that, "China is going to grow old before it grows rich." It is more of a curiosity that Jacques chooses to simply gloss over these inconvenient truths, so eager is he to trumpet China's rise and America's decline.

Jacques also spends much energy - both his, and his increasingly exasperated readers' - pushing back against the notion that as China becomes richer, it will become more "westernized." Yet there is much evidence on the ground here in China to refute his thesis. To begin on the surface level, China, like most countries in the world, has a healthy (or perhaps, unhealthy) share of McDonalds, KFC, and Burger King restaurants. It also has a voracious appetite for American movies, music, and sports figures. (Kobe Bryant is probably more popular in China than in the United States.) Meanwhile, women have entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers, the country is rapidly urbanizing, and citizens are demanding an increased amount of accountability from their government. All of there are classic examples of ‘westernization.' Indeed, Jacques' depressing and downright insulting insistence that Chinese people don't care about individualism, human rights, and fair representation is belied by recent developments such as the demands for government accountability by citizens groups in Sichuan province following the earthquake there last year, and the founding of the Charter 08 group.

Moreover, despite the increase in Mandarin-learners in the western, the global supremacy of English continues apace: when I worked for a business magazine in China earlier this year, I attended many business seminars, workgroups, and conferences in Shanghai. Even if the crowd was nearly exclusively Chinese, the meetings were held in English. I even witnessed groups of Chinese businesspeople, all obviously native Chinese speakers, speaking to each other in broken English at networking events. (This can be a truly painful experience.) English remains the dominant language of commerce, even in roaring China.

But Jacques ignores these facts, choosing instead to bang the drum of American declinism, and the alleged rise of China. Brushed aside throughout the book are China's demographic crisis, its steady "westernization," and its persistent poverty.

China may one day rule the world, but, to paraphrase Keynes, when China rules the world . . . we'll all be dead.

-- Ethan Epstein is a business writer based in Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in the Weekly Standard, the New York Press, Spiked Online, and others.

[oldbill]

Easy for you to say.
Obama is the president and Democrats run the congres. Do not underestimate the danger they can do.

[Sherman Logan]

Excellent article.

Various countries are posited as as replacing America as the dominant power. This is usually done by concentrating on America’s problems while ignoring those of the contender.

Europe, Russia and China have structural economic and cultural issues that dwarf those of the USA.

Dominance in the world is relative, not absolute. America could go into significant decline in absolute terms and remain dominant as long as competitors decline at equal or greater rates.

[SeekAndFind]

Obama is the president and Democrats run the congres. Do not underestimate the danger they can do.

America has survived worse. The Civil War, WWII, The Great Society, Jimmy Carter. We're greater as a nation than this pseudo-messiah and his cohorts.

[hosepipe]

[ The Coming end of the Western World may have to be postponed ]

LOL.. now thats funny...

[HerrBlucher]

Yup, America will survive rule by punks and I think, when bambi and his minions are booted out, it will finally be the end of the sixties.

[imintrouble]

I may be a romantic but over my lifetime I have seen much good arise from tragedy.

Decline and re-examination by the American people of how their nation sees its future, questioning where we are headed and whether we are over-extended in our relationship to the other nations of the world.

Perhaps it would be a positive for the “divisive nation” as it is now to make some decisions with compromise and coming together to avoid future disaster.

In sum - fear may bring out our spirit again as the great nation we are - the nation we have built and which we all are a part of - together - in cooperation.

[eclecticEel]

The decline of the West in general (of which we are part) is the defining geopolitical fact of our era. It’s a process that’s already well under way. Industrial societies that don’t take in many immigrants (such as Russia) are already contracting, those that do (like us) have delayed the outward signs of their own decline. As we become an ever smaller and less important subsection of the world, global leadership will naturally pass to the East, before perhaps shifting elsewhere.

And there’s no need to see China, or India, or anyone else as the villain in all this. Everything that’s happening to us we’re doing to ourselves.

[Brilliant]

Authoritarianism is already eclipsing democracy, and in this country.

[Steelfish]

The article omits a key and I think decisive fact. It’s called education. Our educational system is in shambles and accounts for the loss of manufacturing industry and the migration of high tech jobs to to China, India, and the Asian tigers. In less than a decade China has emerged as major political power ( its influence in the Korean peninsula is massive- and we cannot even host the Dalai Lama for “fear” of offending China) and of course, China holds almost two-thirds of American debt. Where do we go from here?

[paul51]

Is America in decline?
Spend some time in an inner city school. Spend some time on the streets of Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, etc. Spend some time watching what our elected officials are up to on the state and local levels. You'll have the answer

[SolidWood]

Time to wake up. America IS in decline. Obama is the symptom of where we are. But it’s isn’t irreversible. We can get back to greatness and liberty again, but we are right now fullspeed into the opposite direction.

[SeekAndFind]

OK, I realize that China holds a large chunk of US debt, but let’s not exagerrate things. China does not own 2/3 of our debt.

See here :

http://hearus-now.org/?p=276

The 15 Largest Holders of United States Debt

15: Luxembourg – $104.2 Billion

14: Depository Institutions – $107.3 Billion (commercial banks, savings banks, credit unions)

13: Russia – $119.9 Billion

12: Insurance Companies – 126.4 Billion

11: Brazil – 139.8 Billion

10: Caribbean Banking Centers – 189.7 Billion

9: Oil Exporters – $191 Billion

8: United Kingdom – $214 Billion

7: Pension Funds – $465.4 Billion

6: State and local governments – $522.7 Billion

5: Other Investors – $629.7 Billion (“other” refers to individuals, government sponsored enterprises, brokers and dealers, bank personal trusts, estates, corporate and non-corporate businesses)

4: Japan – $711.8 Billion

3: China – $776.4 Billion

2: Mutual Funds – $769.1 Billion

1: Federal Reserve and Intergovernmental Holdings – 4.785 Trillion

---

Now, can anyone explain to me what FEDERAL RESERVE ownership of US debt means and its implications ? It looks like we’re printing money and loaning OURSELVES the money at the same time...

[ChildOfThe60s]

My wife and I counted all of the nieces, nephews, cousins, children and grandchildren in our combined family circles.

The producers are vastly outnumbered by the non producers. Even the term non producer is generous. Those on that side of the equation are leaches, sucking out scary proportions of society’s assets.

And it is significant that many of these young adults were raised in productive middle class families.

One 37 year old has had 7 illegitimate children, all taken from her by the state of Florida. The costs to society are incalculable. Several are milking SS disability for so called mental problems.

The literacy level of those under 35 with HS diplomas is depressing.

If this is coming out of middle America, what does that tell us about other segments of society?

[ChildOfThe60s]

1: Federal Reserve and Intergovernmental Holdings – 4.785 Trillion

There is the 600 pound gorilla in the alley.

As far as I can tell, that is all simply paper. And a lot of the ink is still wet.

And the Fed is printing money to pay the interest on the money borrowed from other entities.

[paul51]

They have learned that they don't have to be productive. The government will take care of them. After all, they have rights. For another eye opener, take a cruise down the central valley of CA and through the southwest. That will tell you where we are headed.

[Dem Guard]

China’s economic growth has made them dependent on the economic health of the countries they trade with just like all other major trading countries. (Any wonder why they are so concerned about the long term value of all those bonds they hold?) They need healthy trading partners like we do to prop up their own economy and ward off massive unemployment and social unrest.

[Cicero]

Europe, Russia and China have structural economic and cultural issues that dwarf those of the USA.

Exactly. China is going to have a meltdown not too long from now. Usually when that happens it means it will split up among provincial warlords, if history is any judge.

But that's not to say that America isn't in deep, deep trouble.

Another candidate for world leader is Brazil. But there, too, they have worse problems than we do. We're probably in for a bad time all over the world, which may last for 20 years or so. I hate to seem gloomy, but it's hard to avoid.

And that large an economic collapse is pretty sure to lead to wars. So, we'll see how it all plays out. Better if Pakistan didn't have nukes. Better if North Korea didn't have nukes. Better if Iran wasn't getting nukes from Putin. Better if Putin didn't have ambitions to reset the Soviet Empire. Because we're going to be seeing a world-wide mess.

[jimmyray]

Now, can anyone explain to me what FEDERAL RESERVE ownership of US debt means and its implications ? It looks like we’re printing money and loaning OURSELVES the money at the same time...

That's exactly how they do it. Big ol' shell game!

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

“The Divine One” is a symptom of an underlying disorder effecting the American people. There is a place called America but it is rapidly becoming a mere geographical expression. The term America is losing its meaning as a referent pointing to a “People.” For example, human beings still live in Rome Italy, but one would no longer call them “Romans” in the sense of those people who withstood Hannibal and went on to conquer the world. Americans are dying as a “People.”

[The Comedian]

Yes and no.

We're going to go, but we're taking everyone else with us, they just don't realize it yet (and neither do we for the most part).

For example: America goes bankrupt. China ascends into first place using the capital from what, selling air fresheners to Vietnam? Poison dog food to France?

It's back to subsistence farming rice with oxen.

We're the plug in the world economic bathtub. Sure, China might be the bunch of bubbles farthest from the drain, but when we go, glub glub glub goes China.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[penowa]

Everything that’s happening to us we’re doing to ourselves.

That's what happens when a country is run by suicidal lunatics.

[TomasUSMC]

Interesting info

[ModelBreaker]

“Dominance in the world is relative, not absolute. America could go into significant decline in absolute terms and remain dominant as long as competitors decline at equal or greater rates.”

While perhaps true, it is not at all comforting. America is declining rapidly. Until now, the welfare classes have been confined to the elderly, the poor, large corporations, and trial lawyers. Recently, we added public employee unions. By 2010, the left will have achieved it’s goal of making ALL Americans into part of the welfare class with its health care plan. Welfare classes vote differently and think differently.

This is a huge transition that will quickly accelerate our decline. We have much further to fall than do other countries so the relative ranking will perhaps remain but become relatively meaningless because so small.

From a world viewpoint, America has already abdicated its leadership as a proponent of individual freedom and limited government. Fascism is everywhere on the rise, China, Venezuela, Hondouras. We have joined that parade both internally and in our foreign policy.

America’s principal cultural export used to be the notion of limited government and freedom. All that remains of our cultural export today is the debris from Hollywood and rap music, advocating complete behavioral license (one very small and dangerous part of freedom) and group identity politics, so long as it does not endanger our fascist rulers.

So at least we will remain a leader in the “cheerleading moral decline” zone.

[wagglebee]

Excellent article, thanks for posting it.

[Sherman Logan]

I don’t disagree with most of what you say. But most of these articles are about some other country replacing us as dominant in the world, not about the whole world going down the drain.

We may all indeed be going down the drain, but the US is likely to be one of the last circling it.

As you imply, our problems are far more cultural than economic, political or military. Cultural problems do not have easy political answers. Moral rebirth is the only real solution, and I have no real ideas on how to bring that about.

My only point was that most other countries are in even worse shape than we are.

Cheery thought, ain’t it?

[Freddd]

But were United States citizens then.

are we now?

No
We are
African
Hispanic
etc....then Americans. and a lot of them hate America.

[Jacquerie]

America has survived worse.

Yes, we have. The problem is that as opposed to earlier times, our major institutions today have, thanks to the Radical Left, such structural rot I am not confident they can withstand much more. Federalism is dead. Our government makes little effort to remain within the envelope of enumerated powers. The government has spent over 40 years assaulting the family. The list goes on and the government assault on the civil society is only getting worse. Oh, and our currency, which is on life support is a sure goner if Hussein Healthcare passes.

[mrsmel]

I can think of quite a few times, when reading the comments sections of British newspapers, that commenters have salivated over the scenario of China overtaking American as the lone global superpower. It made not one jot of difference to them that the world under the whip of the Chinese government would be a very different prospect to the world being under the benign leadership of the US. I thought then that I’d never seen people so anxious to embrace their chains, if it would pique their “enemies”, but that was before a majority of Americans (both alive and dead) elected Hussein.

[Jabba the Nutt]

What new world beating products, processes or inventions has China given the world in the past 20 years?

It takes freedom to unleash creativity and property rights to take on the establishment with new products?

[SaraJohnson]

Yep. In both parties.

[American Constitutionalist]

What I find interesting is the aging population numbers in this article and in about 2020 that it's effects will start to be felt in China when labor will start to become expensive.
Perhaps companies will start to move back to the USA.
The one child policy of the last few decades in China will have dire consequences in the next few decades in China, no top of that, the same effect will be on the Liberal population here in the USA from abortion.
No wonder Obama and his henchmen are trying to pass anything they can in Congress.... time is slipping for them and they know it so they need to destroy America while they got time.

[Jabba the Nutt]

Actually, the current decline of America, like that in the 70’s is caused by Big Government. Freedom is the cure.

[American Constitutionalist]

He who owes the bank $ 1000 got a problem, He who owes the bank $ 1 Billion, then the bank is the one who got a problem.
Yes, China can influence us because we owe them so much money, but, that is not a debt that China can forget or ignore.

[American Constitutionalist]

Exactly !!!

I couldn't have said it better myself.
I do believe though, the leaders of Russia and China know for certain that if the USA goes, so do them, it's just ? the lemmings and sheeple who voted for Obama and the Liberal hell hole of Europe don't realize it.
Where is China going to find another economic market like the USA ? .... Europe ? ....
All the economic Asian markets are dependent on American consumers as long as we got money to spend, but, once we go under, so do they.
I also still believe that America still has the technical advantage and prowesness inspite of the decline of our educational system, and inspite of Russia and China stealing our technology.

[SuperLuminal]

"(America is NOT in decline)"

That's correct....It's freedom and liberty that are in decline.

Once the transformation is completed, probably in 2013, the U.S. Communist empire will become dominant in it's tyrannical rule of North and South America....Surpassing the level of control that the former Soviet Union had over Eastern Europe.

Its almost as if the Fourth Reich will fulfill Hitler's 1000-year dream...and, as well, Ronald Reagan's 1000-year prophecy / nightmare.

[Steelfish]

Yes- but as the leading capitalist system, the US cannot afford not to play China’s game. If not, and China calls in even a portion of this debt and the US is unable to pay, we’ll have the collapse of the stock market and the entire nation in a state of beggary.

[aquila48]

“Various countries are posited as as replacing America as the dominant power. This is usually done by concentrating on America’s problems while ignoring those of the contender.”

I used to agree with that line of thinking, but with Dumb’O in there explicitely stating that his purpose is to reduce the US to “no better than any other country”, I’ve become a pessimist.

Only another Reagan will be able to undo the coming damage. Is there one in the wings?

Right now I’d put my money on China, especially if they loosen up politically. They sure as hell have no intention of being “no better than the rest”. They have a strong nationalist streak and they’re aiming to be #1.

[Sherman Logan]

China has unique challenges.

The biggest being that they are still a very poor nation, taken on the average, and that they are a very rapidly aging nation. As many have pointed out, China is going to get old long before it gets rich.

Something I haven’t seen discussed is the distinct (to me, anyway) likelihood that China will get more aggressive as its demographic destiny becomes more obvious.

As one fairly obvious example, eastern Russia (Siberia) is absolutely crammed with underexploited natural resources and has always been underpopulated. It is today rapidly emptying, even faster than other parts of Russia.

Geopolitical vacuums tend to not remain empty for long and Chinese movement on empty Siberia against a still heavily nuclear armed Russia could be a very dangerous thing.

[aquila48]

The fact they’re still poor means they have a lot of internal demand they can count on - they don’t have to rely on exports to grow. Sort of like the US before the 60s - what went on outside our border wasn’t of much importance economically.

If they do a good job of protecting private property and developing good legal contract foundations - the ingredients of capitalism - that will take them a long ways. (This, though, may end up being their achille’s heel.)

There’s nothing other than themselves to stop them from achieving the standard of living of taiwan, hong kong or even Japan. At that point they will be an economic colossus and like any power they’ll be expanding their influence and protecting their interests. That means they will be a first class military and diplomatic power.

[ModelBreaker]

“I don’t disagree with most of what you say. But most of these articles are about some other country replacing us as dominant in the world, not about the whole world going down the drain. We may all indeed be going down the drain, but the US is likely to be one of the last circling it. As you imply, our problems are far more cultural than economic, political or military. Cultural problems do not have easy political answers. Moral rebirth is the only real solution, and I have no real ideas on how to bring that about.”

All of this set of opinions kind of assume things are going to keep going the way they are except that X or Y will reign supreme, instead of the US. So we would be number 3, say, in a rich, global economy. What they don’t see is that all of Western Civilization as a whole is going down the tubes and that those are the people who created the infrastructure and ideas that made a rich, global economy possible.

Worst, as the world swirls, the folks best positioned to take over demographically are Muslims, not Chinese or Indians. I could handle Chinese or Indian overlords. But Muslims . . .

That is the recipe for a new dark ages as Mullah’s tinker with their better’s engineering and science trying to figure out how those fiendish Great Satans managed to make all that wealth disappear just as the Muslims took power. They will gnash their teeth wondering where all the innovation went. They will inherit some buildings and aging cars but not the knowledge of or the system that made those things possible. Their historians will spend decades blaming Jews for hiding all the gold and they will give my grandkids the choice to submit or die. Information and civilization will disappear down the black hole of a black ideology.

[Cronos]

I don't believe the West is declining. I do believe that parts of East Asia, South Asia and South-East Asia are rising along with South America. There IS a difference between those things.

too many people say America isn't as great as it was in the 1950s -- but those were charmed times for the US. At that time, Eurasia was devastated by the war and the US WAS the world's economy.

As the rest of the world grows, it was natural that the US would no longer be the super-ultimate-giant blue whale in a sea of shrimps. Now the US is a blue whale but there are many belugas and right-whales around. In the future, the US may be the largest blue whale but there will be other blue whales around.

that doesn't signify a decline, just that others are growing.

[Cronos]

not quite so simple. China is also exporting to other countries and trying hard to build up it's internal economy

The other big Asian giant -- India -- didn't get affected by the slowdown because it's GDP growth is mostly due to internal consumption and internal growth.

China is trying to replicate that

[Sherman Logan]

Unfortunately, I do believe the US is in a period of cultural and political decline. Which is not to say we can’t pull out of it.

My whole point in these discussions is that those who promote the end of US dominance in world affairs need to come up with a credible alternative. Without exception they do so by ignoring that the alternatives they propose have much worse systemic problems than we do.

US problems, IMO, are primarily cultural. We’re drifting farther and farther into decadence.

But cultural trends can reverse themselves. Countries like China, Japan, Russia and Europe with major demographic challenges can’t just change their opinions and suddenly have millions of women of childbearing age willing to have babies. You drift past that point and it really is “no return.”

[TopQuark]

"Various countries are posited as as replacing America as the dominant power. This is usually done by concentrating on America’s problems while ignoring those of the contender."

True, but that does not make the statement false. America too may fall apart, for instance. Or commit suicide in some other manner. Most great civilizations are not concurred: they self-destruct and their terrritories are then taken by some other peoples.

Sixty years ago Great Britain owned one fourth of the world surface. Would you say then that forecasts of its decline are false? Declines, even precipitous declines, do happen. "Europe, Russia and China have structural economic and cultural issues that dwarf those of the USA."

Yes, now they do. But who told you that Texas or Southwest of the U.S. cannot separate from the rest of the country in a few years? We had a civil war once; can it not happen again? And, if so, do you know the consequences?

You do what most people do: take a snapshot of reality and, assuming the basic structure being intact, make a forecast. It's the fundamental structural changes that change the relative position of countries. "Dominance in the world is relative, not absolute. America could go into significant decline in absolute terms and remain dominant as long as competitors decline at equal or greater rates."

I completely agree with you. A good supporting example is the Turkish Empire. It has been viewed as a "sick man of Europe" for centuries, but somehow that sick man refused to die.

[Sherman Logan]

You do what most people do: take a snapshot of reality and, assuming the basic structure being intact, make a forecast. It's the fundamental structural changes that change the relative position of countries.

Quite true. However if I had the ability to foresee fundamental structural changes not growing out of existing trends, I'd have much easier ways to make a living. :)

While things may not proceed largely as an extrapolation of present trends, that IS the way to bet, usually.

While the US is indeed in a degradation of culture crisis, it is surely relevant that Europe, one of those supposed to replace us as dominant, is even farther down this path than we are.

[TopQuark]

"However if I had the ability to foresee fundamental structural changes not growing out of existing trends, I'd have much easier ways to make a living. :) While things may not proceed largely as an extrapolation of present trends, that IS the way to bet, usually."

I completely agree with every word you said.

For myself, I developed a rule of (almost) completely disregarding forecasts for very long periods of time.

Since the 1990s, I started to suspect that we'd have a complete redifiniton of the world, perhaps a world war of sorts, in 2012-2015. At the time, the mentality increasingly looked that in late 1890s (what little I could learn about the latter): the SAME globalization; the same talk of the impossibility of war in view of the strongest interdependence among the countries, etc. That is what makes ripe conditions for war. [This is NOT a forecast, but an observation of what appears a causal relation: stock markets go down when optimism becomes common sense, racism increases when multi-cutlturalism becomes a dogma, etc.]

With one of the most inept (aside from leftist) administrations ever ruling the country; and, given the dominance of this country in the world -- I increasingly feel as if I am sitting on a stick of dynamite. It is particularly difficult, therefore, to accept any forecast even for 2020.

[Sherman Logan]

Your mention of the “redefinition of the world” is interesting.

WWI created such a redefinition. Since then we’ve limped along pretty much in trends growing out of what happened in 1914 to 1918.

I would not be surprised if such an event popped up, but I’m not sure it would be a war. Who do you see going to war?

The US isn’t going to invade anybody, not in the old “conquer France” meaning of the term. And if the US retains its dominance nobody else really has an opportunity to get a “real” war going.

Which is why I always think the peaceniks who hate the US are so hilarious. The US dominance is exactly what has created our remarkably peaceful (historically speaking) world of the last 60 years. Remove or even reduce that dominance and war becomes a whole lot more likely.

[TopQuark]

"Who do you see going to war?"

Just like WWI, it will come (if it all) from what initially will look like a nuisance. Greater than an assassination of some duke, but still something "minor" and irrelevant to the rest of the world.

The naive, simple scenario is of course the Middle East. Here I don't mean the bombing of Israel by nuclear Iran. It can be as simple as Israel's attack on the nuclear facility. Can you foresee what will happen if Israel fails? I cannot. I see the immediate retaliation by Iran in the form of hundred or conventional rockets falling on Israel. But the real problem is the emboldening of both Persians and Arabs by the failure. That alone can start a regional war (Arabs + Iran vs. Israel). I have no clue, but remain very concerned, by the reaction of Russia and U.S. It would be a chance for Russia to expand, if not annex anew, some former colonies south and east of its border.

Another scenario is a Sino-Indian conflict, which may spill farther East. Regardless of this, North Korea is also unpredictable (a war is a last resort of a failing dictatorship). I cannot see Japan and China remaining uninvolved.

Finally, the war need not be of the same form as the last two. Consider an enormous drought in 2015 in Africa. What will Europeans do if hundreds of thousands of Africans start floating towards Europe (like Cubans in 1970s to our shores). It can be a peaceful invasion, a last straw from which Europe will never recover. What if that happens in 2020, when you WILL see Muslims elected to the governing bodies of France, Spain and the Netherlands?

Continue the last scenario sans invasion. If Europe collapses form within, under the Muslim reproductive pressure, could they embolden Arabs in the Middle East to attack Israel, now with European economic and military support? Will such Europe continue to honor NATO obligation? If not, will it not make Russia the European hegemon, given that it will then be supplying most of European gas (and possibly oil)? Such Muslim takeover will constitute a redefinition of the world, albeit without shots fired.

Alternatively, Europeans may still wake up and turn sharply right and attempt to expel Muslims (yes, on the basis of race and religion), which will result is some kind of civil war. If so, this would be one of those structural changes the precursors for which cannot be seen today.

Finally, I don't believe that the European Union is viable. Quite soon they will discover that Spain and Italy are border countries that HAVE to deal with Muslim invasion, and the rest of Europe will not support them in these issues (compare this with the situation in California and New Mexico, and the indifference of the federal gov't to that problem). Illegal immigration into Spain, for instance, is and will be ignored by the rest of Europe. Such tensions alone can bring EU down. I cannot fathom the consequences if EU disintegrates in the fashion of the Soviet Union. It will affect us, Russia, the Middle East -- but I cannot even speculate how.

There are plenty of scenarios, and they appear quite ripe.