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http://www.democraticunderground.com...D38/14792.html

After the Empire The Breakdown of the American System

By Emmanuel Todd
Translated by C. Jon Delogu

The efforts of the United States to sustain its position
as the planet's only post-Cold War superpower show
serious signs of back-firing. The current American method
of operating in the world will lead to a gradual
downsizing to normal nation status as the United States'
military, economic, and ideological tendencies continue
to anger allies and enemies alike, according to Emmanuel
Todd. Todd anticipates that American hegemony will wane
and an enhanced role for what he calls Eurasia will
emerge, bringing together in common cause the world's two
most productive industrial centers, Japan and Europe, and
two regions of military and demographic force, Russia and
the Arab-Islamic world.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catal...023113102X.HTM

Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 by dArKeR

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Pride goeth before the fall

The US and USSR were the superpowers after WWII. The USSR
is gone. With Bush and his neo-Nazis in power, it is only
a matter of time before the US is gone as a world power.
I only hope the country is able to survive in a kinder,
humbler form.

Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 by ayeshahaqqiqa

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Hello from Germany!

I can only highly recommend this book. Even if you
disagree with the author on some points. He was
predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union at a time,
when most people couldn't imagine this would ever happen.
He's some kind of professional in demographics - if
you're not familiar with that science, it's really
interesting to be introduced in their work.

It was really changing the way, I'm looking at the U.S.
politics. In a nutshell, he states that the U.S. is weak:
economical an even military. And this show of strenght
managed by the Bush-Admin is rather a try to save the
U.S. from its' downfall. He was among the first, who
stated, that the war against Iraq was about the Euro
against the Dollar.

Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 by Dirk39

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Hi Dirk
Sounds very interesting.

Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 by madmax

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In my ideal world I would have at least three centres of
power, with different cultures, and equal enough power
that they would all have to be careful in what they do. I
would think Europe (inc Russia), China, and the Arab
world. That might be stable.

I think the most interesting thing in the world today,
however, is population growth. Globally, it may be
positive (growing), but look at the individual
countries/cultures. The West is either falling (and
heading for disaster), eg Japan, or just keeping it's
head above water with immigration, eg USA, Australia.
Think about this - If a country has below-replacement-
rate birth rates, and is topping-up with immigration
(which net has to come from a non-Western culture, as the
West's birth rates are all-over bad), then what trend
does that suggest in population mix? The Western World
could be defeated by stealth! Taken over by more vigorous
peoples with (shock, horror!) sustainable birth rates!
Not that I have a problem with this. It's just amusing,
is all.

Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 by Mal

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I've got to disagree

Living on China's doorstep, as it were, I definitely
would not want to see China implementing an aggressive
foreign policy or otherwise trying to impose its peculiar
brands of politics and economics on the other countries
in the region.

As for the claim about Japan "heading for disaster"
because of its relatively low birth rate, I take such
doosday talk with a very large grain of salt. I hear that
sort of talk all the time, especially in the work that I
do in Japan, but I also know that the Japanese, as a
nation, worry excessively about mundane matters. There
are already 126 million people in these islands, which
together are about the same size (and have about as many
mountains) as the state of California. There are few
natural resources besides water (which Japan has in
abundance) and most of the country's food has to be
imported from abroad. How many people are enough, given
these circumstances?

Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 by Art_from_Ark

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I say nothing for or against China, however your
(perfectly understandable) lack of desire for China to
impose its values and policies upon its neighbours can be
taken as support for my argument. The reason the US can
force its own values upon whoever it likes at present is
that there is no strong counter-argument. I am suggesting
that if we had a stable balance of power between
different cultures, they may act as a check on each
other. I have read (in a book labeled 'Fat and Mean')
that this happened to some extent during the Cold War,
that bottom-level American workers were better paid and
treated then they are now, so America could show how much
better they were than the USSR.

I don't believe that Japan and much of Europe is destined
to inescapable destruction, but that their current course
has them in a lot of trouble. I see them as a car driving
towards a cliff, they're not automatically going to go
over that cliff, but something will have to change to
stop it happening. You are, of course, right in pointing
out that population size is not a problem (at least, the
population is certainly not 'too small'!). What I see as
the problem is the age-groups of the population, there is
steadily less young, and steadily less of those young are
wanting to have children themselves. While the aging
population can likely be supported in one way or another,
the number of young will continue to shrink as long as
the number of children born is below replacement rate;
and, this is an unsupported opinion of mine, but I feel
that as a society ages, it has less and less patience for
the young, making people less and less likely to want to
have children.

Population trends also have a lot of momentum, and
apparently take a long time to change. Last I heard,
China's population is still growing.

Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 by Mal

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What you have pointed out is a pattern well known to
geographers

That is, less developed societies tend to have more
children, which is seen as a natural consequence of
several factors:

1) The inability of the parents to rise out of poverty so
they pin their hopes on their offspring ("maybe little
Diego/Ahmed/Lin can become a doctor and take care of us
in our old age")

2) The infant/child mortality rate is higher in less
developed societies (as a general rule), so having many
children is like an "insurance policy"

3) Societies in less developed societies tend to place
more respect on fertility in women and sexual prowess in
men

4) There is little or no social safety net in less
developed countries (see #1)

5) There are few other amusements available, especially
for women and people who have little money

Once a society develops, the incentive to have large
families rapidly diminishes. Usually, economic
advancement involves moving from the rural areas, where
there is room, to cities, which are cramped. People can
start saving money, and the government begins to build a
social safety net, so there is less dependence on
children to take care of their elderly parents. Having
money allows people to pursue other pleasures and
activities, which they couldn't if they were "bogged
down" with too many children. Moreover, it becomes much
more expensive to take care of children in advanced
societies. Essentially, that is what has happened in
Japan in the last 60 years, and can no doubt be used as a
text for various societies in Western Europe.

Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 by Art_from_Ark

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