If America wants to remain a superpower, it needs to ditch Obama and the Dems who want to turn us into Eurosocialists, it needs to drastically reduce its debt and deficit spending, and it needs to step far, far away from cap-and-trade.  Europe can cap their carbon, and we can go ahead and outproduce them.

Oh, you mean Eurosocialists like Greece, Italy, and Poland who have such huge debt and deficits it's going to seriously mess with the Euro?  Yeah, great idea.

As far as I can tell the dollar is nowhere near as bad as the Euro.  Probably has something to do with the productivity of our free-market economy.  Well, freer than Europe's at least.  And also, I wonder how much spending we could cut if we ditched such entitlements as Social Security and MediCare?

maybe we can sell all our olympic gold?

There is one key difference...no nation before the US was a superpower while the world was so globally connected and interdependent...every empire BEFORE the US either had other comparable empires or did not have access to the whole globe...

The Mongol Empire and British Empires were the closest...but the Mongols didn't have global reach like the US, and didn't really have control over the far reaches of their empire...the British Empire had global reach, and was the most powerful of its time, but it didn't dominate global politics or economics on the scale of the US...Africa and Asia were piece-mealed by all of Europe, not just Britain, and even great Britain couldn't have stood up to more than a few enemies at once...

With the fall of the USSR, the US was unquestionably the first true superpower the world had ever seen...the US is the first nation that can military react quickly anywhere in the globe without a comparable competitor capable of the same...when it comes to superpowers, military power is the ultimate factor...technology, economics, government style--they're all important, but military power represents a nation's ability to synergize it's economy, technology, and government...military power also is the most direct way to spread influence...the US isn't on the UN security council, dominating summit meetings, and leading coalitions against a country like Iraq because it has the largest economy in the world...representing half of all global military expenditures is why the US is a superpower...if America loses its edge with technology or industry, it will lose its place as a superpower...but only because its military will lose its edge as a result...

The US got lucky...it got through WWI AND WWII with hardly a scratch compared to most nations (cough cough...Russia and China...cough cough)...and, it became superpower right when technology truly connected the entire globe...the US may or may not fall from the upper echelons of global power...but regardless of what happens, past history won't be good enough to predict the future....not this time, this time "empire" has taken on a whole new meaning...

The American military is most definitely overstretched...but so has the military of every empire, it is simply part of being imperialistic...

Except that in the 1930s there were no massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons...America could prepare for conventional warfare, but if America went to war with any nuclear power (which is pretty much all your powerful nations), it wouldn't really matter...counter-insurgency as of right now is the warfare of the future...aircraft carriers, commando units, satellites, stealth aircraft--this is what makes the American military so effective, not hordes of tanks and fighter jets....the next progression of warfare is likely to be cyberwarfare...and as of right now, America is the leader in that too...America may be losing its grip, but its military is going to be holding the number one spot for quite a while...and therefore, its spot as superpower...

True, all empires have stretched militaries but America tries to be in more places at once than any previous empire but with fewer personell proportionally.

My point was that every one believed that counter-insurgency was the future of warfare and that no major wars would ever occur again and this was before BOTH world wars. The major powers were wrong about counter-insurgency and major wars several times before. They will likely be wrong again eventually.

Why such a focus on military strength? Economic strength is more important while the risk of M.A.D. looms.

How is America Imperialistic?  I am curious where our empire is so I can go visit it.

This is a very good point...to put things in perspective, the US had (at least for some extended time) 160,000 personnel to invade and occupy all of Iraq, and only about 20,000-30,000 of those are actual combat infantry...Persia invaded Greece with more than 200,000...during the Japanese civil war there were battles where each side had 160,000...Russia defended just a single city with ten times that number during WWII...and all those countries had less people to pull from that America currently does today...

Where previous empires economically lost the ability to maintain themselves, I believe you may be on to something...America might lose its grip because of demographics...

[quote who="MichaelCook" reply="493" id="2651769"]

Why such a focus on military strength? Economic strength is more important while the risk of M.A.D. looms.

[/quote]

Military power is simply a representation applying economic strength...if military strength is deteriorating, it is because of economics...a strong military requires a strong economy, however a strong economy does not give a strong military...Japan is a great example (due to treaties after WWII) of a powerful economy not backing a large military...America before WWI and WWII is another example of a powerful economy not choosing to support an equivalent military...having a military is a choice, having an economy is not...

[quote who="Dr Guy" reply="495" id="2651834"]

The American military is most definitely overstretched...but so has the military of every empire, it is simply part of being imperialistic...
How is America Imperialistic?  I am curious where our empire is so I can go visit it.

[/quote]

If you want to know how imperialistic the US is, ask Iraq...or Afghanistan...or Iran...or Japan and Germany (where we still after 70 years have troops there)...or Russia (where we sent troops to prevent a communist victory in the civil war)....or Vietnam...or all of South and Central America...or China (uhm, Taiwan???)...

About the only place that hasn't felt American imperialism is Africa...because America doesn't care about Africa...

Thank you!!!  Bonus Points for you! 

"The only way of winning is not to play."

Officially an awesome quote.

Anyway, I'd say that the only way of making the world peaceful is by ending superpowers. However, not through destruction, but through fairness. If every country and every person was free, and everybody was paid what they deserved (eg no cheap eastern labour) then resources would be spread evenly, and the world would be at peace. There would be no more superpowers, as the power wouldn't have to all rest on one country. We'd stop killing each other, or threatening each other, and democracy would reign. Except, of course, it wouldn't, because there's always a few who want more, take it by force, and start a dictatorship and upset the balance. Unfortunately, the lack of superpowers mean that there isn't a military or a NATO to go sort it out, and nothing is done, due to the constraints of democracy. The world returns to square 1.

Anyway, I just typed that off the top of my head, and it isn't completely on topic, but anyway...