What if America should fall? What if the United States should be reduced to just a backwater country, or should break up into smaller countries, all separate from each other. This essay is about how this event, should it occur, will affect the rest of the world. The effect will be huge, adverse, and catastrophic.
Here is the scenario. The United States has ceased to be a world power. At this time, the U.S. no longer has any influence on the world stage. What will happen?
In the Middle East, Iran, the strongest and most stable country, no longer has the U.S. as an obstacle. If they have the atomic bomb, they will either use it, threaten to use it, or allow terrorist groups to use it. It is difficult to say if they have any territorial ambitions.
At present, Iraq and Syria are already divided countries with Sunni, Shi’ite, and Kurdish factions. Tensions will escalate causing the destruction of the countries and the deaths of innumerable citizens. The outcome will be determined by the most powerful and organized state. Without the intervention of a powerful U.S. presence, chaos will ensure on an insurmountable degree.
Without U.S. support, the fate of Saudi Arabia will be in the hands of an ineffective royal family and the Wahabbi extremists.
Israel will be surrounded by massive hostility and their fate will depend on their ability to withstand these hostilities. Israel is an extremely strong and stable country, and their prospects for their future appear promising. Israel is a country known for both brilliance and resilience. These attributes will serve them well when dealing with the many Mid-Eastern threats in the absence of a strong U.S. support.
Israel and Palestine will continue their unresolved dispute, and many lives, on both sides, will be lost.
Without a strong U.S. intervention, China will inevitably annex Taiwan and claim the entire South China Sea. These actions may necessitate an alliance between Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and perhaps India to secure their own safety and protection.
It is not unimaginable that North Korea will attempt to attack South Korea and Japan due to the lack of a strong global superpower intervention.
Russia will have the opportunity to take back the former Soviet republics, now independent countries of Ukraine, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and Kazahstan. All of these states, along with the rest of Europe, will have no choice but to fight back, but they will have an unlikely ally: China.
The alliance between China and Russia will be gone, because they would no long have the U.S. as a common enemy to fight.
The alliance between China and Russia will be gone, because they would no long have the U.S. as a common enemy to fight.
Russia is not strong enough to fight a two front war and this could possibly give China the opportunity and advantage to take Siberia and all of Asiatic Russia while Russia tries to take back the former Soviet Republics.
In the event of global chaos due to the lack of a global superpower, Central and South America, along with the Caribbean Islands, will fall prey to drug lords and many other fighting fiefdoms. The general public will be subject to atrocities on a daily basis. The citizens will pledge their loyalties to their respective regions - they will have no choice if they want to survive.
Canada and the U.S. will become closer allies vying for mutual survival.
Africa is even at the moment consumed with tribal wars and chaos. Other countries will most likely try to take advantage of their vast mineral wealth causing yet more strife.
Many nations feel that the powerful U.S. is policing the world, and we have made a few foreign policy blunders, the biggest being Iraq. However, without these interventions, perhaps there would be even more political unrest . As Colin Powell once said, “One of the fondest expressions around is that we can't be the world's policeman. But guess who gets called when suddenly someone needs a cop.”
Some important questions to consider if the U.S. should fail to remain the imminent world power are:
- Who would take the place of the U.S.?
- How will the political border of warring countries be decided?
- Who will fight, or at least stand up, for the freedom of the individuals and their ruling powers?
- How will the global community deal with the valuable resources of the planet?
- What will happen to the citizens whose freedoms are infringed by extremists, facists, and totalitarian regimes?
There are so many more questions that will need to be addressed. The U.S. government may have made many political errors, both by accident and by personal gain, but another question is, what is the alternative?
This is a question that should be asked by everyone. A unified planet is perhaps the only answer without the greed and selfishness of petty minded politicians. Co-operation is the only true solution whether the U.S. remains the chief superpower or not.
Here in the U.S. there are many problems to address both within and without the borders of this country. Doing nothing is not an option.
Alastair Browne
edited by Rachel Maloney
