Do you think the United States will collapse in our lifetime?

Our government deserves a massive retooling, not a collapse. A collapse puts alot of innocent and good people out on the streets and their lives in danger for no reason.

And lots of lawyers too, you wouldn't want them loose on the street would you?

edited 22nd Aug '11 2:08:26 AM by Deboss

In the worst case scenario, barring some disaster out of nowhere, America will just become like Britain - declined, but here to stay nevertheless. And will have undoubtedly undergone societal changes.

I have a feeling it'll be more like the British Empire. It'll have problems that the government refuses to fix and when financial heartbreak hits, everything is scaled back and this goes on for a 50 year period until you realise, you're not just no longer top dog but just a middle power that thinks he's much greater than that.

Assuming that the borders don't change, USA will continue to be a global power of sort, simply because of the land, resources and people would dwarf most other nations.

Also, if I remember rightly Tom, you have 1.5 million active regulars and 1 million reservists. That comes out to a total deployable manpower of 2.5 million, which at a population of 300 or so million, is most certainly nowhere near as low as 1 per 300. And just to point out, 1 in 100 being in the military, is considered massive military spending and arms-race situation. It's not sensible to have that many troops. Take for instance China, which has 2.5 million soldiers out of a population of 1.6 billion which is like 0.15625% of the population, nowhere close to the almost 1% that America has.

You'd have to nuke the US for that to happen. If nukes are being used, then it will be more than the US that will be collapsing, too...

Nobody has to nuke the US. The US could kill itself but I don't think that'll happen in my lifetime.

I'm guessing the US probably won't be as powerful as it used to be, but a total collapse isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

Unlikely there are governments and countries that have it worst than the US and their still standing. Like India its like has ten times more problems that the US and its still a thriving progressing nation. No way the US can fall right now after it has been around for so long, and endured so much changes and challenges.