According to the Declaration of Independence, the United States has a history of 247 years. If we look at the three-hundred-year cycle of dynasties, it seems that the United States still has a few decades of national fortune.
However, dynasties only represent the rise and fall of the fortunes of the continental dynasties, and the process of the ruler's power from centralization to decentralization. Therefore, it is a bit far-fetched to calculate the rise and fall of an era by using the three-hundred-year cycle law of empires.
Moreover, the replacement of ancient dynasties is basically based on the gains and losses of land and the end of the fate of emperors. But it was an era of agrarian or nomadic peoples, and it was not embodied in the era of maritime supremacy.
70% of the Earth's surface is oceans, and only 30% is land.
The United States was founded in 1776, and it was not until 1945 that the United States wrested maritime supremacy from Britain and became the world's maritime power. From 1776 to 1945, the United States was founded for 169 years, and if you count according to the three-hundred-year cycle, the United States was a second-rate country for most of the time.
In fact, the United States has experienced nearly 122 years of land expansion, and from 1898 to 1945, the United States experienced 47 years of ocean expansion. Since 1945, the United States has gone through an 80-year period of maintaining maritime supremacy.
Let's review the process of the rise and fall of the world's maritime powers:
1. Spain:
In 1580, Spain annexed Portugal and became the first maritime hegemon. In 1639, it was defeated by the Dutch navy and lost its maritime supremacy. It took 88 years for Spain to reach its peak in 1492, when the Spanish seas expanded. And the hegemony was maintained for only 66 years.
2. Netherlands:
In 1602, the Netherlands began to attack the maritime powers. By 1639, the Netherlands had defeated Spain, and it took only 37 years. The Netherlands remained a maritime power until 1874, when it was defeated by the British Navy. The Netherlands has maintained its status as a maritime power for a long time, 145 years old.
3. United Kingdom:
Britain's seafaring history dates back to 1559, and it took Britain 225 years to become the dominant power of the seas until it defeated the Dutch in 1874. After 1940, Britain was overtaken by the United States. In 1945, Britain was officially reduced to a second-rate country and lost its maritime supremacy. Britain has maintained its position as a maritime power for 156 years, and it is indeed true to say that Britain is an old empire.
Returning to the United States, if we follow the cyclical law of land empires, the United States seems to have entered a period of decay of old age. But if we are judged to be the supremacy of the sea, the United States will have at least 30-40 years of national fortune.
Because in today's world, without its maritime status, this country is basically a second-rate country. The emaciated camel is bigger than the horse, and even if the United States shrinks back to its homeland and then experiences a series of domestic turmoil and decline, it should go through a period of recession for hundreds of years.
When a country goes into decline, most of the internal contradictions intensify, and then it moves towards splitting and even destroying the country. In fact, this process is also a process of reshuffling, a new force replacing the old force and reuniting.
It's like the beginning of the Three Kingdoms: the world will be divided for a long time, and it will be divided for a long time.
U.S. Domestic Political System:
The center of power in the United States is, in order, Congress, the president, and the Supreme Court.
The Constitution places legislative power on the federal government to Congress, which consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Members of the National Assembly are elected by the electorate and are accountable only to the electorate and are not subject to the interference and influence of the presidential organs.
At this point, we can probably understand that the U.S. Congress can oversee and influence the president's executive decisions. Although the president has the right to veto congressional proposals, once a congressional proposal is passed by more than two-thirds of the votes, it is considered a legal fact.
The president is indirectly elected by the electorate and is directly accountable to the voters and not to Congress. Government executive officers are appointed directly by the President and are accountable to him.
Although Supreme Court judges are appointed by the president, the Supreme Court can dismiss presidential decrees on the grounds that they are unconstitutional.
As can be seen from the above, the United States has a separation of powers and checks and balances on each other. Therefore, when the president of the United States exercises power, he is relatively tied to his hands and feet. Moreover, each state of the United States can be constitutionally independent and constitutional, like multiple vassal states under one court. This is also the case that state law is more capable of exercising local power in many cases.
Now comes the real question: Will the United States gradually decline?
1. Industrial Manufacturing:
Domestic productivity in the U.S. is low, and many basic product supply chains are not domesticated due to high labor costs in the U.S. Therefore, the industrial output value of the United States is not high, and it is quite different from that of World War II. At present, the proportion of manufacturing in the United States has dropped to less than 18%.
Judging from this data, the United States has been a deindustrialized country for many years.
2. Agriculture:
The American plains have great advantages, a high degree of agricultural mechanization, and grain production accounts for 20% of the world's total. Such a large grain output accounts for only 0.84% of the national economy.
3. High-tech industries:
The high-tech industry currently accounts for 10% of U.S. GDP and is growing at a rate of 2% per year.
4. Tertiary Industry and Service Industry:
Here's the problem, the entire U.S. service sector contributes more than 75% to the entire national economy. The service industries in the United States mainly include transportation, warehousing services, information transmission and software, wholesale and retail, catering and accommodation, real estate and leasing services, finance and financial services, insurance, science, education and culture, education and health, sports and entertainment, various public management and social organizations, international organizations, scientific research and technical services, and so on.
Okay, what can we probably learn from the above analysis? The U.S. continues to be home to the world's top talent, who has transformed the U.S. economy in a major way. At least from this, it can be seen that the United States is still a country that relies on brains and IQ to drive development.
So such a country is in decline? I'm afraid it's too early to tell. Unless he is caught in a quagmire of war from which he cannot extricate himself, coupled with many domestic contradictions, he will be caught in a kind of death spiral.
Having said this, we should not only look at the strengths of others, but also analyze the shortcomings faced by the United States.
1. Deindustrialization:
If you want to remain a world power, deindustrialization is not the ideal way forward. At present, the United States has relocated and outsourced a large number of industries to other countries, but in fact it has reached a critical moment, which is tantamount to tying its own hands and feet. Because the means of production and the human factors are not with you, you need to import even one shell to produce it.
Take the auto industry as an example, the United States currently produces less than 10 million cars a year, accounting for about 10% of the world's total. China is close to 30 million vehicles per year, accounting for more than 30% of the world's total.
2. Debt:
The United States currently owes so much money that Yellen wants to raise its debt to $51 trillion. You must know that because the United States continues to raise interest rates, the interest paid out alone is as high as one trillion yuan every year.
The U.S. debt crisis is the biggest shortcoming that the U.S. is currently facing. Always thinking about borrowing money to get by, it will only get harder and harder to borrow.
3. 穷兵赎武:
The U.S. defense budget currently accounts for 3.2 percent of GDP and 18 percent of federal finance, amounting to $880 billion a year. The United States accounts for 40 percent of the world's total military spending, making it the world's largest military spiking.
The United States has 300,000 troops stationed in more than 80 countries around the world, and there are more than 750 military bases alone. In recent decades, there have been numerous acts of aggression, occupation, bombing, and subversion of other countries' regimes.
4. Emptiness of the treasury:
In 2023, the total revenue of the US national government will be $4.8 trillion, but the fiscal expenditure will be $6.37 trillion. There is a $1.57 trillion fiscal deficit in between, causing the U.S. government to shut down at every turn.
The specific causes of the fiscal deficit are: high welfare, vote buying, irrational tax structure (the rich pay less taxes), waging war, etc.
5. Disparity between the rich and the poor:
Less than 1 percent of America's wealth is in the hands of less than 1 percent of the population, more than 90 percent of the country's population combined. Coupled with the economic downturn in recent years, the proportion of the middle class has shrunk, resulting in a large number of the American population living below the poverty line.
6. Gun proliferation:
Legal possession of firearms is a fundamental factor that causes instability in American society. According to incomplete statistics, tens of thousands of people die from gun violence every year.
7. Poisonous poisoning:
As a result of the policy of ignoring the people of the elites, more than 100,000 people have died in the United States from the scourge of drugs. According to 2023 statistics, more than 10 million people have smoked opium once. According to incomplete statistics, 60% of the world's marijuana is sold to the United States, and more than 50 million people over the age of 18 in the United States have smoked opium once.
You must know that the total population of the United States is 330 million, what is the difference between such a proportion and the Qing Dynasty at the beginning, and foreign countries belittled us as the "sick man of East Asia"?
The point is that ordinary Americans are not so-called wealthy, and most of them rely on government handouts to anesthetize themselves. Too much drug use can easily cause mental confusion and cause social unrest. What if smokers don't have money to buy opium? If you have a gun, you can grab it!
8. Racial contradictions:
Most people of color in the United States do not have a high status, which is seen by the world. Social divisions and turmoil caused by racial tensions are staged almost daily. This is also a stubborn disease in American society for many years, and there is almost no cure for it.
9. The Financial Empire under the Control of Jewish Capital:
After World War I and World War II, Jewish capital emigrated to the United States in large numbers from Europe. Today, the United States has a well-developed financial industry, and Jewish capital plays an important role in it. But in the long run, Jewish capital is deeply rooted in the Federal Reserve, and it is not at all good for a country that holds the banks that issue its currency in private hands.
The presence of Jewish capital in the United States, over time, may cause dissatisfaction among the Anglo-Saxons.
10. Party fighting:
Those who are familiar with history probably know a little bit about the vicious struggle between the Donglin Party and the Eunuch Party in the late Ming Dynasty on the mainland. The Donglin Party was mostly the ruling ministers, and the eunuchs were mostly the eunuchs headed by Wei Zhongxian. During that period, the Donglin Party suffered widespread persecution and purges, which caused the state decree to be dim and the people's resentment boiling.
In the United States, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party under the rule of the Senate and the House of Representatives often attack each other and chase each other fiercely. If you are interested, you can learn about the "Watergate scandal" in the United States and see how it spied on and stole information from the opposing parties.
The above detailed list of the current shortcomings of the United States also fully shows that the United States looks like a gentleman wearing a tie on the surface, but in fact there is a broken body behind the suit and leather shoes.
Finally, let's take a look at the motivations of the United States for waging war in recent decades.
1. Under the banner of anti-terrorism, it proves that the US military can accurately strike anywhere.
In fact, this is for the sake of our own people, which means that we can exchange the minimum casualties for the highest benefits and costs.
A detailed count of the previous wars of the United States, anti-terrorism, anti-nuclear, anti-biological and chemical weapons, etc., is actually a geopolitical conflict that is beneficial to itself.
However, it is impossible to fight without dying, and in the Iraq war alone, the United States suffered more than 50,000 casualties, and 4,500 U.S. troops were directly killed. The United States has been deeply involved in the war in Afghanistan for 20 years, and with more than 20,000 casualties, it has not completely eliminated the Taliban, and finally had to withdraw its troops in disgrace.
2. Help the U.S. military industry experiment with new weapons and dump arms.
The arms industry is the pillar industry of the US economy, and the annual arms export has brought a lot of benefits to the US economy.
The dumping of expired arms continues to be invested in the research and development of new weapons. The U.S. military industry needs a virtuous circle to promote its own survival.
3. Consolidate the hegemony of the dollar.
This is also the most fundamental reason why the United States started the war. Recall that any country in the world that tries to de-dollarize will inevitably suffer in the near future.
Whether it was the Kosovo War, the Iraq War, and today's Russia-Ukraine War, etc. As long as there is a war, it will be accompanied by regional turmoil, and the US dollar interest rate hike will cause the dollar to repatriate. The United States has repeatedly tried and tested this model to gather wool all over the world.
Therefore, the hegemony of the dollar is also the bottom line of the United States today, which is equivalent to his cheese, and if anyone touches his cheese, he will send troops to fight at any cost.
For example, after the introduction of the euro, then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was the first to jump out and say that he planned to replace all his oil transactions with euros in the future. This was tantamount to stirring the sensitive nerves of the United States, and soon after, the Iraq War broke out, and Saddam Hussein was finally sent to the gallows by the US government.
Under the guise of removing Iraq's chemical weapons, he finally deceived the world with a bag of laundry detergent saying that it was a biological and chemical weapon, and did a hasty matter.
Summary: The world has suffered from the scourge of the dollar for a long time, and the old use of a set of tricks will inevitably make the world understand. The dollar is looting the global economy, and this tactic is only going to get harder to use.
The U.S. economy is bound to suffer as the repatriation of dollars plays a smaller and smaller role in filling the U.S. economy. At least for now, we are seeing the renewal of the arsenal of the United States, which seems to be becoming slower and slower.
Will the United States decline in the future? Again, a skinny camel is bigger than a horse. Even if the United States loses its maritime hegemony and becomes a second-rate country in the future, it will take a long time.
The world is constantly changing, and every day in the world is different. In fact, the difficulties facing the United States are not small, and it depends on how it copes with the ever-changing domestic contradictions and major international events.
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