I've written before elsewhere that as America's imperial control begins to fray, she will change from a source of order, no matter how repugnant you may find it, to a font of chaos and entropy. This is actually a natural historic phenomenon. As the Pax Romana withered along with
the legions enforcing it, the strategies employed became less related to maintaining the Roman order and world view, which is expensive, to the cheaper Byzantine option of sowing chaos along the peripheries where Roman control had waned. Scorched Earth policy at a fundamental
strategic level. Laying waste to the productive assets you can no longer control to deny their potential use to the enemy by accelerating civilizational entropy.
It will work for a time, but this strategy is primarily a delaying one. As America's strength weakens, what counts as the periphery will gradually expand. Abandoning Arabia Felix to protect Egypt will lead to abandoning Cisalpine Gaul to protect Rome.
This strategy is particularly suited for America's socio-economic system because it is so reliant on foreign capital flow to sustain it's economy and thus empire. People buy dollars and dollar assets because they expect that they will be the last to be torched by neo-vandals.
The lie is that there is an actual safe harbour to begin with. The faith in the American system isn't in it's government or in it's people. It's in the US Navy being able to prevent others from wrecking productive capital in the US in retaliation. The value of the dollar is
intimately related to the strength of US fleets. Most economists wouldn't think so, but really when investors say "safety", it really at it's most basic level means not being blown up for some random political reason.
