Debate

If the USA collapsed would the rest of the world follow?

  • Yes

    Votes: 10 52.6%

  • No

    Votes: 9 47.4%
  • Total voters
    19
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Cenna

Cenna

Well-known member
Pretty straight forward question keep all arguments clean. No bashing!

I say Yes

My argument is as follows

It is ignorant and stupid for anyone to say the world wouldn't be affected by the collapse of the United States. China relies solely on the U.S. to buy most of their products. Once the US falls, China will fall and that's just about 40% of the world's economy right there. Countless others would fall as a result. Look around, American companies are everywhere. You probably use a Visa credit card. You might drive a Ford, Chevy, Cadillac, Chrysler, or GM vehicle. Odds are you have an iphone, ipod, ipad, or mac. You drink Pepsi and Coke. You go to Starbucks on occasion. The US owns the Internet and most of the satallites in the sky. The US has the most powerful military. The world would be screwed because as soon as it fell every wishful dictator in the world would be licking his chops. Russia would probably re-establish the USSR, the list goes on......

 
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Cenna said:
Pretty straight forward question keep all arguments clean. No bashing!

I say Yes

My argument is as follows

It is ignorant and stupid for anyone to say the world wouldn't be affected by the collapse of the United States. China relies solely on the U.S. to buy most of their products. Once the US falls, China will fall and that's just about 40% of the world's economy right there. Countless others would fall as a result. Look around, American companies are everywhere. You probably use a Visa credit card. You might drive a Ford, Chevy, Cadillac, Chrysler, or GM vehicle. Odds are you have an iphone, ipod, ipad, or mac. You drink Pepsi and Coke. You go to Starbucks on occasion. The US owns the Internet and most of the satallites in the sky. The US has the most powerful military. The world would be screwed because as soon as it fell every wishful dictator in the world would be licking his chops. Russia would probably re-establish the USSR, the list goes on......
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You mean the country as a whole or just the economy?

 
Every bit the economy and the nation

Better way to put it is if it disappeared or some freak accident and it get blown up idk what scenario you put but if America as a whole collapsed 

 
No the population is there of course I'm going along the lines of the Roman Empire collapsed so to speak

 
It would obviously be a major economic shock to the rest of the world.

The question is, how resilient is modern society to something like that?

There are some who think that modern society, with all its complexity and interdependence, is one disaster away from everything falling apart like a fragile house of cards. Any major problem with the supply chain would lead to more problems down the line, quickly grinding the entire system to a halt, and there would be food riots within a week.

There are others who think the opposite, that our advances have made us more efficient at everything including handling crisis, and society is harder to destroy than it has ever been.

I think evidence is on the side of the second group. There's been no lack of major natural or man made disasters in the last hundred years and modern societies have handled them pretty well.

Some statistics relevant to this thread:

US Exports: $1.62 trillion

US Imports: $2.35 trillion

Foreign liabilities to the US: $23 trillion

US liabilities to foreigners: $30 trillion

World GDP, minus US GDP: $62 trillion

 
Ok going to re ask it. The government losses control as an economic downturn worse than the great depression hits and the USA is unable to recover 

 
If the US falls into anarchy due to an economic crash, probably the rest of the world did to, the US is just too interlinked to the economy.

 
The only thing i can think of is that there could be hell on earth if the united states just fell apart. And this is all im gonna say because im sure that either Europe or Russia or possibly both will immediately react to the entire collapse of the united states and due everything they can to try to stop, halt, or slow down the drastic effects that would come if such a thing would happen. This would also mean Europe would have to start increasing the size of their armies when the worlds last super power falls. I know the USA's position as the last super power is fading but it is fading at a slow enough rate for Europe and the rest of the world to not have to be concerned and can have an easy time responding to the decline when they have to, but they would have to be really concerned or will out right panick if the united states collapsed and they didnt have enough time to monitor the situation and couldnt come up with a plan that would allow them to be properly prepare if the worlds last super all of a sudden collapsed.

 
North Korea wouldn't

regardless, the entire world will be drastically set back if USA collapse. Hell, even if other major countries collapsing instead of the US (e.g. Germany, China, Japan) would have a negative effect on the rest of the world but not by that much

 
I don't believe that the collapse of the United States and its economy inevitably or inherently means that the rest of the world's countries and economies would collapse as well. I think that if the United States collapsed in the manner which has been described in this thread it would definitely have a large and negative impact on the world economy and that some countries might possibly collapse as the result of it. However, I doubt that the entire world economy would simply collapse as a result of the original American collapse and I doubt that all of the world's countries would be doomed to the same fate as the United States in this scenario.

 
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Big Brother said:
I don't believe that the collapse of the United States and its economy inevitably or inherently means that the rest of the world's countries and economies would collapse as well. I think that if the United States collapsed in the manner which has been described in this thread it would definitely have a large and negative impact on the world economy and that some countries might possibly collapse as the result of it. However, I doubt that the entire world economy would simply collapse as a result of the original American collapse and I doubt that all of the world's countries would be doomed to the same fate as the United States in this scenario.
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I can agree agree to an extent that true some nations would survive but we're talking about the biggest consumer economy in the world dropping off and no longer buy or trading or anything for that matter. Next would be China the world's biggest producer who almost has to rely on the US to buy there stuff. And of course the nation's using the Dollar would be screwed but if China falls as directly linked to the USA collapse it at that point would be catastrophic.

Woot said:
I think evidence is on the side of the second group. There's been no lack of major natural or man made disasters in the last hundred years and modern societies have handled them pretty well.
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See but the world since has grown to rely on others for support and essentially they'd lose the biggest consumer economy and producer economy which combined make up about 40% of the world economy.

One of the main reasons there's not been a major war is because every nation knows they need the other. (Expecially USA and China)

 
yeah but not because they were dependent, The world would probably burn in atomic fire and the Enclave could finally establish a new world order. You really think the USA would elect a rational leader in times of crisis like that ? They would take everyone with them because we hate losing.

 
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The way the global economies are interlocked, I think that if the USA got that bad off in a natural course of events, then the rest of the global market is facing a depression as well. In a natural course of events, that kind of depression would bring all the major economies of Asia, Europe, and the Americas down with it and we would see uprisings and revolutions around the globe as the global balance fell apart. 

However, if what you're talking about is a sudden collapse of the US economic infrastructure, something somehow not based on the downturn of the entire global market, then I think the world market would be temporarily in free-fall, then frozen. Paralyzed even. But it would continue. My thinking is that the US controls a major portion of not only the global market but also the military power  in the world. If the US somehow supernaturally just dissipated I think we would see a massive vacuum, I don't think anyone can deny that.  But I predict that even though every nation that does any trading would be severely impacted by this, even if indirectly, and even with many small and some moderate sized nations collapsing as well, the vacuum would slowly be filled by other military powers (China, Russia, UK maybe). What we would see is that as the changing of the guard unfolds, the global market would first stabilize where it was but then begin to grow again.

The world would be drastically different with China as a world superpower and Russia again as a close second (but much more influential than we see today) but the world would not collapse. I don't think myself an idealist but I know that, even though the US is the largest fuel to the Chinese economy, that when the Chinese forces begin to act as "peacekeepers" and "relief forces" in these small collapsing nations (the same way Western nations have done for hundreds of years) that this could very well offset a lot of the economic loss and provide a much larger safety net. 

My answer: No, because even though the global market would be in shambles for a long time, there are at least two other nations ready to fill the vacuum. 

 
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Needed Explanation: Are we talking about a sudden dissipating of the US economic presence and money value etc. OR is this the fizzling out of the US through a recession that it cannot bounce back from? Big difference

 
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