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Originally posted by CamChicks
Re-instating the draft would be political suicide - so, while a few lunatic leaders might support it, there won't be enough votes to make it happen. Hypothetically, even if it did, there wouldn't be enough prisons or guards to force consequences on all those who refused.
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I think you're right on this one... there's still enough bad feeling about the last draft (at least, amongst the people not privilaged or connected enough to dodge it) that a draft this time would be considered a serious infraction on civil rights.
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Besides, we'll never invade a country that has nukes. In the near future, that'll be pretty much every potential enemy.
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An ugly thought, but probably true... at least to a certain extent. I doubt many countries would develop a nuclear capability of substantial proportions enough to inflict damage anywhere in the world they wanted, but even short range balistics can cause a world when tipped with 20 megatonnes. Still, never say never. Remember that Nixon mulled the possibility of a limited nuclear exchange, and by today's standards he'd be farther left than Clinton!
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The only war with China will be a trade war, which we can't win. They will be the economic superpower of the next century.
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China's weakness is its need for energy. If they can develop domestic energy production to the point where they're not dependant on OPEC or US hegemonic puppets, they will be very difficult to defeat economically. It's no great surprise that they've been building pebble-bed nuclear reactors all across the country, with an eye to produce as much as 75% of their energy needs by those means.
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Soon the Islamic states will join together collectively, under the umbrella of a nuclear arsenal, and the USA won't have shit to say about the price of oil anymore.
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I can't see this happening unless some extraordinary circumstances, or an extraordinary person, brings them together.
There is a certain wistfulness amongst arabs that another "Saladin" rises up, a militant religous icon that unites all the followers of islam under his banner and brings them into a new golden age. A cult of personality like Osama bin Laden could pull it off if unification were his genuine goal, but so far noone has stepped up into the role and OBL only evokes that imagery in a cynical fashion.
However, an extreme act by a 'loose canon', say Israel deciding to bomb iran's nuclear development facilities, could be a trigger that would cause such an overwhelming tide of anger against zionism that it'd break the barriers of nationalism and sectism... at least long enough to ride roughshod all over israel. There'd be a lot of additional fallout as well; an event like this would surely trigger the popular uprising heralding end of the house of Saud.
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Also at that point, to avoid nuclear war, we'll have to step back from the Israel dispute and let 'em sort it out themsevles; whatever the consequences.
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Assuming the avoidance is desirable to whomever was in power at the time. See above about Nixon.
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We're going to have to get used to not being "#1" anymore. We'll still be one of several strong nations, just not the only one. The USA will no longer have the luxury of ignoring the UN.
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I don't think that the US will drop into medocrity easily. It'll slowly lose dominance in one area, then another, then another. Some things they'll never lose. This is all highly speculative, of course. I *would* suggest that the culture of mindless consumerism will have to come to a halt for all but the richest elite.
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If we have pragmatic rational leaders who can practice effective diplomacy, then things really won't be that bad. Mutually Assured Destruction worked okay in the 80's. But if we end up with another 'Dubbya' . . . then maybe the world goes BOOM.
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I don't think the black and white, good guy vs. bad guy pseudo-view of the world from the 50s would be applicable in this scenario. There's going to be several "power blocs", each with their own power bases and alliances. Nuke exchanges would probably fuck up the world fairly substantial, but it wouldn't be that total destruction thing like back in the day. Of course, as a result it'd make the situation much less stable.
One thing I'll be interested in finding out is how the US will deal with the end of oil. Considering all domestic agriculture and commerce is heavily dependant on petroleum, the potential for catastrophe is large.