Coping with LossFollow

So during the 1930s when Britannia realised she no longer ruled the waves, Great Britain went into several decades of beating itself up, mourning the loss of the Empire, and generally being an international curmudgeon.

When Rome lost its empire, it basically went down the toilet and vecame the world's wino bag-lady.

After the loss of the Spanish Empire, Spain settled itself down into being the embarassing neighbour of every other European state.

So I'm fascinated as to how Uncle Sam will cope with being overtaken as ****-of-the-Schoolyard? Sure, yours has been the most ingenious Empire the world has seen (where none of the member countries realised they were part of the Empire). Now USA is going to be dancing to the tune of China, India and Brasil, how will Washington cope?

How will rank and file US citizens cope with knowing that they are no longer part of the world's most powerful nation. I'm guessing it will take decades before denial gives way to acceptance, but by then, you'll all be working in paddy fields to keep Beijing's overlords fat.

Hmmm

/strokes chin

people still actually spend time caring about this?

I'm pretty sure that Brazil stopped being the "next big thing" around 1995 or so.

I thought Texas was the only state that thought it was an independent country?

So I'm fascinated as to how Uncle Sam will cope with being overtaken as ****-of-the-Schoolyard?

Force. You people can't really be this gullible. You think the US is going to quietly decline to a second rate economic power without a major military conflict that will make Iraq look like the Falklands? Really???

Fuck you, we still rule this world and will until there's no world left to rule!

Yes, the 51st, 52nd, and 53rd states and every other "state" you never mentioned.

Damn that Ghandi, it's his fault the world is like it is now.

Already bankrupt and the sole property of Beijing

Unlike Rule Britania, our navy, army, airforce and offensive nuclear capability is still great enough that we can back up our empireish trash talking. The F-22 can outfly and outfight any and all comers, and it itself is not composed of our latest technology at this time. Our submarine fleet is larger, faster, and quieter than any in the world, especially China's akula clones. Our Nimitz class aircraft carriers allow us to project power anywhere, and the new Ford class carriers will further multiply that advantage. The M1-A1 is 20 year old technology, yet still the best main battle tank in the world by far.

Brasil lacks the hardware to really affect anything militarily.

India is trying to aquire it from russia, and they have the money to make that happen at the moment, looking at their recent purchases. Navalized Mig 29's (arguably the best aircraft the Soviets ever designed) The Admiral Ghorshkov (sp) aircraft carrier they are purchasing, which is about the closest thing you can get to a Nimitz class carrier, the Akula II attack submarines they are purchasing if the freon fire suppression systems don't kill everyone, but they really don't have the cultureal drive for empire, especially with pakistan to deal with as an external agressor.

China, China still is behind us in several key areas. They currently don't do aircraft carriers well and their domestic figther aircraft designs are years behind everyone right now. Submarines they definitly have an interest in, but even there they are significantly behind because Sovier russia never really shared much in the way of design material with them because they too didn't trust china. Their tank designs are mostly Soviet era hardware, which the M1-A1 is an effective counter for. What china does well though, is infantry, and missiles. Their training program for field soldiers is closer to the Russian Spetznas program than anythign we have, and they have more people to throw at military training than we can field. Their army is several orders of magnitde larger than our own, and just as well trained and equipped.

Missiles, we did have an edge over china, but since we basically gave them our entire guideance and targetting package 10 years ago, there is no real difference in tactical capability except our stealth systems are better, and they don't really have a "missile shield" program. They have very effective ICBMs and missles, native Uranium deposits, and the hardware to churn out nukes at an alarming rate though. They have not tested a fusion weapon to my knowledge at this time, but that could be either because they never recieved the technical package from the Soviets and chose not to persue it, or they have a design they just have chosen not to show.

China's economy tanked even more than ours did just recently too by the way.

The British empire did not shrink because of a lack of military hardware or offensive capability.

We lost the military hardware along with our industry but kept the offensive capability in the form of Nobby

Sure. while I do that, you hold this nuclear hand grenade. i'll be right back.