[mburbank]

I agree with george, but I'll take it a step further. I think we are in the process of overreaching. If we are lucky and don't begin the end of civilization as we've known it, we will find ourselves permanently encamped in multiple hostile locations which will drain our resources and create ever more enemies until we begin the slow, crippled slide into irrelavance that all formal world powers undergo.

Please God, let it be reasonably survivable like the British. Barring that, perhaps we can hope to go like the soviets and not vanish utterly. The only alternatives are going like the Egyptians and the Aztecs, leaving behind little but chaos and the remnants of monolithic architecture.