You Can See The End From Here

And this is where I’m going to do something I typically stay away from: make a prediction.

May you live in extraordinary times.

- Ancient Chinese Proverb

Originally, I’d planned for this to be one of my longer posts. However, the more time I spend writing it, the more the “air” goes out of it, so to speak. I already have a tough time getting pieces out in a timely manner, so I think it’s better to keep this one to the point as much as possible. There’s plenty more to come on this, for certain.

By now, most of you are aware of the new war that’s erupted in the Middle East. Almost two weeks ago (time flies!), an outburst of horrific violence by the Islamist jihadist group Hamas, which also happens to be the ruling party of the coastal territory known as Gaza, triggered an overwhelming retaliation from Israel. The country is now on a state of full wartime mobilization, with a second front threatening to open up in the north, primarily against Hezbollah, the formidable militant group prominent in Lebanon.

As I write this, Israel is preparing a ground assault on Gaza. For years, conventional wisdom has held that in order to permanently eliminate the security risk posed by Hamas, a ground invasion, along with regime change, would be necessary. It looks like we’re on the road to finding out whether that’s the case or not. Make no mistake about it: this war, one which has already shed considerable blood, is already the deadliest in Israel’s history since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began exactly 50 years ago, and a ground invasion would skyrocket the death toll. It’s without a doubt the most serious crisis in the Middle East in at least a generation, but it has the potential to spread consequences far beyond the region. I think it’s been established time and again that what happens in the Middle East doesn’t stay in the Middle East.

This isn’t the space to adjudicate the rights and wrongs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not only is it beyond the scope of this blog, it’s too complex and loaded of a topic to discuss in a single essay. My personal stance is that it’s ultimately not our concern, just like the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. The only reason it’s become our concern is because the United States decided generations ago to become party to this conflict. Surely, we’ll be impacted by it to a significant degree, but our country’s responsibility to itself is to limit and mitigate that impact, not get deeply involved nor bring that conflict home. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the Regime seems bent on doing.

American military forces are being deployed to the region in significant numbers. There’s an aircraft carrier strike group patrolling the Eastern Mediterranean, with a second on the way. In addition to 2,500 Marines awaiting off-shore alongside the carrier, an additional 2,000 troops are earmarked for a potential “non-combat” deployment to the region. Despite supposedly being our “greatest ally,” the U.S. has rarely deployed military force in direct support of Israel in its wars, not to this degree. After years of gradually drawing down our presence in the region, it has ramped up seemingly overnight, suggesting the U.S. isn’t quite done in this part of the world.

And this is where I’m going to do something I typically stay away from: make a prediction. Recent events have me convinced that not only is the American superpower on the verge of collapse, it’s final death blow will come not in the Asia-Pacific, nor in Europe, but instead in the place which has dominated U.S. foreign policy for almost a half-century and most certainly during my generation’s lifetime.

It calls back an article from 2010, one which has influenced by thinking like few others. It’s not often you hear mainstream voices talk about the downfall of America - it’s typically what you hear on the fringes of discourse, on the political extremes, and within the survivalist community. But Alfred W. McCoy was and remains to this day a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. If you’re someone who places a lot of trust in the word of “experts,” McCoy isn’t someone to dismiss reflexively.

From Salon in 2010:

A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don't bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

15 years sure flew by, didn’t they? We’re now two years away from seeing how correct Dr. McCoy was. I spoke to him last year by E-mail and he told me he stood by his predictions and I can’t blame him - much of what he’s said has been vindicated by real-world events.

More from McCoy:

But have no doubt: when Washington's global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society, regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation. As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest.

Available economic, educational, and military data indicate that, when it comes to U.S. global power, negative trends will aggregate rapidly by 2020 and are likely to reach a critical mass no later than 2030. The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, will be tattered and fading by 2025, its eighth decade, and could be history by 2030.

McCoy described multiple prospective scenarios for how this collapse might occur. It’s too easy to get sucked into the rabbit hole with either one, so I’ll just say that he highlights two common threads: the loss of American power abroad and an energy crisis set to occur during the mid-2020s. Why America lost its power is a whole different topic of discussion and so is the cause of the coming energy crisis. I wish there was a way to succinctly

But if you haven’t noticed, America doesn’t have the same kind of sway in world affairs it once did and gas prices have have skyrocketed in a matter of a few years, along with many other goods and services. There’s reasons for all this and COVID isn’t the only one. It’s the end result of a million different things accumulating over time and the proverbial camel’s back is now sagging. So much of America’s “global leadership” was predicted on bad things simply not happening on our watch, but that mirage has been shattered completely. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a huge blow to that image of American preeminence and now the enemies of Israel coalescing against it is another.

And yes, Ukraine will lose to Russia. The U.S. is out of ammunition to send them and I’m not sure there’s much left to send Israel without completely expending our stockpiles. For now, we’re finding the money to continue backstopping these countries, but for how long, nobody knows. We’re due for a recession at home and the financial crisis that comes with it. We’re quickly reaching a point where both continuing to fund our so-called allies abroad is as unthinkable as cutting off all aid from them today. Not a whole lot more can go wrong at this point with the “Leader of the Free World” narrative completely unraveling.

So the bottom line is this: the convergence of a loss of American power abroad with a major energy crisis in the mid-2020s will lead to the rapid loss of American prestige. That loss of prestige will lead to the loss of superpower status and the U.S. as we’ve known will cease to exist overnight as it becomes just another player on the world stage, even as it remains physically large and powerful. It’s hard to imagine what that country would look like, but remember the U.S. wasn’t always a superpower. There are some Americans, albeit a very small percentage, alive to this day who were around when the U.S. wasn’t a superpower. In historical terms, it wasn’t that long ago, even as it remains beyond much of our lifetimes.

Well, that version of America is about to become part of our lifetimes again. It won’t be all bad, no, but the good times are quickly coming to an end and it’ll be a while before they return. It’s definitely too early to be optimistic.

For now, buckle those seat belts - there’s some serious turbulence on the way. 2024 is an election year: there’s no reason to believe politics are going to go back to being civil and impersonal. Currently, there’s a fight underway to appoint the next Speaker of the House to replace Kevin McCarthy, who didn’t even last a year at the post and, if you recall, was the first in 100 years to not be confirmed on the initial vote, and it ultimately took a marathon 15 rounds until he was. Couple that with the ongoing prosecution of former president and leading Republican candidate for 2024 Donald Trump, to say nothing of Joe Biden’s losing streak of a presidency, the state of American politics is unstable to a degree unprecedented for generations.

It’s kind of difficult for me to articulate why I feel the way I do, so I’ll just say this: the combination of foreign policy crisis, energy crisis, and political crisis at home, to say nothing of the economic impact that’s certain to result from all this, we’re looking at the most existential emergency this country has been in for almost a century. We all have our opinions on how it’ll all turn out in the end, but I’m not sure how the U.S. in its current form intact on the other side of the next few years. No, I’m not predicting a total societal collapse, but to go from being the lone superpower to just being another player on the bloc is a drop so steep, it may as well constitute a collapse.

Politically, we are now in what’s known as a “state of exception.” Basically, this is a condition where the usual way of doing business has been suspended and the central authority basically assumes dictatorial powers to address an immediate crisis or to at least maintain order. The Roman Republic had this state of exception and employed it periodically, before it became a permanent state of affairs (the Roman Empire).

In the U.S., the concept of a state of exception doesn’t really exist, given our political culture. The closest we have to it is martial law and the suspension of habeas corpus, but these aren’t things the executive (the president) can implement unilaterally. Not without a fight, anyway. But the federal government has undoubtedly become more powerful in the last 20 years alone and there’s no real substitute to the federal government assuming greater powers as the country descends deeper into this intractable emergency.

If the superpower does collapse, the only hope of this country not disintegrating (which very few of us want, no matter what you hear on social media) is a situation where the federal government assumes greater powers. Like I’ve said before, the federal government is a player in the game all its own and arguably the most important one. It cannot afford to lose control of the situation.

It remains to be seen how the state of exception manifests in the U.S. I think no one political figure will reign supreme for very long. We may even have governance-by-committee, even as the public face of the state constitutes a single figure. But if you believe this more powerful central government will result in more effective governance, you’re likely mistaken. Their ultimate objective will be to bolster their legitimacy and ensure state survival, not make society more secure nor prosperous. It’s foolish to trust the government with your life to begin with, but to do so during a state of exception is certain to be fatal.

There’s a million thoughts going through my head as I write this and not all of it needs to be put into words here. For one, I don’t like looking too far out as current events are in flux. I’ll just cap it off by telling you what I think will happen in the next few years and take us through the end of the superpower.

Here’s my narrative:

Out of ammunition and facing a myriad of challenges at home, U.S. aid to both Ukraine and Israel dwindles. Both countries buckle under the pressure from their adversaries. In the U.S., recession plus an energy crisis strike, putting the Biden administration on the ropes. The 2024 election ends up becoming the most contested in American history and it ends with no clear winner decided. The system in place fails to declare a winner, leading to an acting president taking charge in January 2025.

As Ukraine collapses, Israel attempts to stave off defeat by publicly threatening a nuclear strike against Iran’s nuclear program, while working behind the scenes to force the U.S. into doing so on their behalf (mind you, Israel has done this before). With the federal government operating on autopilot with an acting president at the helm, the Regime reverts to deploying more forces to the region and soliciting the help of both the United Kingdom and France to either deter an escalation of hostilities or threaten a strike on Iran to force them to pressure Israel’s enemies to back off.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. Iran isn’t fazed and, facing crises of their own at home, the UK and France drop off, leaving just Israel and the U.S. holding the bag. Jerusalem still expects Washington to lead the way, but with the American internal conflict intensifying, recession deepening, and the energy crisis all bringing events at home to a boiling point, the U.S., salutes Israel and wishes them, “good luck.” Israel goes public with this and American forces try quietly withdrawing from the Middle East, but everyone notices.

In the year 2025, the American superpower has its own “Suez” moment and the superpower dies without a single shot fired.

Okay, I took some creative license there. But if you think I’m off my rocker, at least go back to what Dr. Alfred McCoy predicted back in 2010. Are you really going to sit there and pretend we’re not on the glidepath for the very outcome he broadly predicted long before it was fashionable to make such predictions?

It’s a lot to take in. But I’m not here to just tell you that everything’s going to be okay. Sometimes, that’s just not the case and I’m not one to hold back the truth from you. In order to survive the storm, we need to at least agree that a storm is coming. In our case, it appears the storm has already arrived.

There’s a lot more to come on this topic. For now, I wanted you to know that I believe we can most definitely see the end of America as we know it lurking just over the horizon. No, it’s not the literal end, but it’s the end of one chapter in our civilization’s history and the beginning of another. Good times will eventually return, but for the foreseeable future, tough times lay ahead.

What about you? Where do you see events headed? What’s the fate of the American superpower this decade into the next? What do you see from here? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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