Decline and fall of the US.

[NJ5]

starcraft said:

There is one major difference between the USA and every other empire in history.

If the USA goes under it will take the entire world with it in ways we cannot even contemplate.

There is a novel series written by an Australian author.  They give a highly dramatized account of what would happen if most of America was annihilated (by a sci-fi event in this case).  Nonetheless, it is a seemingly realistic view of just how badly Europe, China, India/Pakistan and the Middle East would go to pieces if the USA's influence was rapidly and dramatically diminished.

The series two books are "Without Warning- America is gone" and "After America."

I'm fairly sure that that's highly exaggerated. Obviously any big country disappearing would have big economic impacts given the globalized nature of the economy, but it's not like the world is hanging by a thread on the influence of the USA military. European countries have nuclear weapons, it's not like it would be open game for other countries to start invading.

As long as we're in the "country X disappearing" hypothetical context, imagine China disappearing for example. There would be a serious shortage of manufacturing capacity which would have big consequences. The immediate impact could be quite a lot bigger than if the USA disappeared. Or if some middle Eastern countries disappeared, there would be a sudden shortage of oil which could well send other societies into chaos in a matter of weeks.