Reply #41: If America is a "main sequence" empire, it's reached red giant stage. [View All]

When a main sequence star has exhausted its hydrogen - the fuel of its youth and middle age - it starts burning helium. It swells to be a monstrous red giant, consuming its satellites in near orbit. Its growth is not a sign of health, but of age and decline. And it is doomed to collapse in upon itself when sufficient mass is expended, and gravity overcomes its volume.

That's where I see the American Empire. It's burned through the fuel of its vital years and its "soft" coercive power, and is left with only its brute military strength. And its burning that, to stave off collapse. But collapse is inevitable.

Will it be a black hole or a white dwarf? That's the question upon which the fate of the world rests.