Historian Daniel Larison unpacks this in his recent piece on his substack Eunomia, about how we are living through a time of persistent “threat inflation.”
In military metrics, US is plummeting next to China. It's always on the verge of default, with a yearly debt ceiling dance, its military can't found enough people willing to serve.
American yearly drug overdose deaths each outstrip the best efforts of Russian army in Ukraine by a factor of 4 if you believe Ukrainian government numbers.
It's a high speed national decline, masked only by the enormous amount of ruin that needs to be accomplished.
In addition to actual spy balloons (of which there are some) it does look like NORAD also shot down at least one hobbyist radio balloon that cost <$300 to send out, which were registered with the FAA and whose owners tried in vain to contact the proper authorities.
If that's not decline - a nation's air force not being able to check what has been reported to them by civilian authorities, and not being able to verify what it's shooting at despite the existence of optic pods (telescopes,. basically).. then what is 'decline' ?
A valuable rubric for prediction is "people overestimate the change the will happen in a year, but underestimate the change in a decade".
People see that China isn't overtaking the U.S. right now and assume all is well. It is not. China's economy is growing much faster than the U.S. and its natural growth will soon make it at least twice as large as the United States even if they do not escape the middle income trap. China also likely has on the order of 10 times as many people with an IQ over 130 as the U.S.
Nothing needs to change. Natural trajectory already has China far eclipsing the United States within a decade or two. Only a deus ex machina, such as AI or another Mao in China can prevent this.
China's economy is growing faster than the economy of the US, but the difference between the two has been decreasing as China's growth slows. I'd expect that slowing growth to continue for a number of reasons.
1 - The middle income trap and more generally the fact that catch-up growth is easier than innovative growth.
2 - Increasing centralized statist control in China, as opposed to the relaxation of such control in the past which allowed for tremendous growth (it is very unlikely to get anywhere near as bad as Mao, but it still been getting worse to a much lesser extent than that disaster).
3 - Demographics.
4 - The US and to a lesser extent a number of other rich countries becoming more hostile and less open to the US, while China itself is doing a bit of the same from the other side. Many countries are seeking to source outside of China. For things that don't need very low wages to be successful there is some attempt to bring the production home. For things that do, purchases will be more from places like Vietnam (and many other countries, I"m not saying Vietnam is going to grab everything from China). Not just from more hostility and less open trade to/from China but also as China's economy grows it will be less and less a low wage place.
5 - The extent of wealth and income in China that's related to a large real-estate bubble.
I still think that China's economy will pass the US's as the world's largest. But I don't see "at least twice as large" soon. Also China has a lot more people. That is the main reason it will become the largest economy. But OTOH that economy is spread among more people. As Chinese living standards improve (and if they don't that we'll create its own problems, but its very likely they will) a huge amount of national income will be needed to cover those living standards. 50% greater economy with over 4 times the people, doesn't give you 50% greater surplus to spend on military adventures or whatever.
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Notes -
In military metrics, US is plummeting next to China. It's always on the verge of default, with a yearly debt ceiling dance, its military can't found enough people willing to serve.
American yearly drug overdose deaths each outstrip the best efforts of Russian army in Ukraine by a factor of 4 if you believe Ukrainian government numbers.
It's a high speed national decline, masked only by the enormous amount of ruin that needs to be accomplished.
In addition to actual spy balloons (of which there are some) it does look like NORAD also shot down at least one hobbyist radio balloon that cost <$300 to send out, which were registered with the FAA and whose owners tried in vain to contact the proper authorities.
If that's not decline - a nation's air force not being able to check what has been reported to them by civilian authorities, and not being able to verify what it's shooting at despite the existence of optic pods (telescopes,. basically).. then what is 'decline' ?
A valuable rubric for prediction is "people overestimate the change the will happen in a year, but underestimate the change in a decade".
People see that China isn't overtaking the U.S. right now and assume all is well. It is not. China's economy is growing much faster than the U.S. and its natural growth will soon make it at least twice as large as the United States even if they do not escape the middle income trap. China also likely has on the order of 10 times as many people with an IQ over 130 as the U.S.
Nothing needs to change. Natural trajectory already has China far eclipsing the United States within a decade or two. Only a deus ex machina, such as AI or another Mao in China can prevent this.
China's economy is growing faster than the economy of the US, but the difference between the two has been decreasing as China's growth slows. I'd expect that slowing growth to continue for a number of reasons.
1 - The middle income trap and more generally the fact that catch-up growth is easier than innovative growth.
2 - Increasing centralized statist control in China, as opposed to the relaxation of such control in the past which allowed for tremendous growth (it is very unlikely to get anywhere near as bad as Mao, but it still been getting worse to a much lesser extent than that disaster).
3 - Demographics.
4 - The US and to a lesser extent a number of other rich countries becoming more hostile and less open to the US, while China itself is doing a bit of the same from the other side. Many countries are seeking to source outside of China. For things that don't need very low wages to be successful there is some attempt to bring the production home. For things that do, purchases will be more from places like Vietnam (and many other countries, I"m not saying Vietnam is going to grab everything from China). Not just from more hostility and less open trade to/from China but also as China's economy grows it will be less and less a low wage place.
5 - The extent of wealth and income in China that's related to a large real-estate bubble.
I still think that China's economy will pass the US's as the world's largest. But I don't see "at least twice as large" soon. Also China has a lot more people. That is the main reason it will become the largest economy. But OTOH that economy is spread among more people. As Chinese living standards improve (and if they don't that we'll create its own problems, but its very likely they will) a huge amount of national income will be needed to cover those living standards. 50% greater economy with over 4 times the people, doesn't give you 50% greater surplus to spend on military adventures or whatever.
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