America can be a superpower or a welfare state, but not both.

[Skybird]

That is typical American binary thinking again, black-white-painting. Either we are a superprower, or we are a wellfare state. No in between. It is stupid to think like this.

Additional to defence budget, there are the socalled black budgets, that are unofficial and thus hard to count. The industry directly contributes to it, rich family clans with busniess interests, lobbies, etc etc. We talk about money in the high billions here. none of that has any legitimaiton by laws, the constitution, or through the voters.

Dear America, a bit less dramatizing and thinking in most polaristic extremes, and a bit more modesty and moderation! Just a bit less globals claims and demands, and a bit more social fairness and more equalised chnaces for people instead of a split between poor and rich gaping more and more apart. A bit less tax reliefs for the big companies, and just a bit more modest defence budgets.

This would win many hundreds of billions.

BTW, I know the book by Paul Kennedy the article refers to (briulliant book, btw, and very pleasant to read). WSJ claims with great naturalness Kennedy was wrong when preicting the overstretching of the American Emnpire, like happened to the Roman and British empire before. But that claim by the journal is baseless. There is the dollar crisis, there is the debt crisis, and there are two wars in 8 years showing the hightech military of the empire beeing shown its limits in forming capabilities. There is an energy crisis, too. There is a credit crisis, and there is a falling trust into the Greenback, and threats by the rating agencies to reduce America's credibility. There is an erosion of American infrastructure and a 3rd-world-level powergrid. There are states like California that by the middle of the years sail at the brink of bancruptcy and must shut down public services. If all this does not yell "Overstretch!", then I do not know what the word means.