What often happens with Imperial Overstretch is that lots of essential stuff are sacrificed in the medium term to preserve the Empire, but in the longer term it is for naught, because that sacrifice includes the economic basis for actually being able to maintain the base empire.

If the US$ collapses, there goes the overseas base network. It may require throwing a lot of essential government spending overboard first, and could take a decade with cycles of dollar dives before it becomes completely untenable, but its a system that is a drain on the external accounts, and a country cannot simply will the rest of the world into wanting to acquire financial assets denominated in its currency.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.