Alfred McCoy, napoved iz leta 2017 (ob izdaji knjige “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power”) dogajanja v ZDA v 2020-ih:

“For the majority of Americans, the 2020s will likely be remembered as a demoralizing decade of rising prices, stagnant wages, and fading international competitiveness. After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare and distant lands, in 2030, the U.S. dollar eventually loses its special status as the world’s dominant reserve currency. Suddenly, there are punitive price increases for American imports, ranging from clothing to computers, and the costs for all overseas activity surges as well, making travel for both tourists and troops prohibitive. Unable to pay for swelling deficits by selling now devalued treasury notes abroad, Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military budget. Under pressure at home and abroad, its forces begin to pull back from hundreds of overseas bases to a continental perimeter.” 

“Such a desperate move, however, comes too late. Faced with a fading superpower incapable of paying its bills, China, India, Iran, Russia, and other powers provocatively challenge U.S. dominion over the oceans, space, and cyberspace.

McCoy leta 2023 glede svoje napovedi in bodoče vloge ZDA v svetovni ureditvi, v kateri bodo ZDA igrale le še regionalno vlogo v Severni Ameriki, Kitajska pa nadzirala 70 do 80% svetovne populacije in gospodarstva treh kontinentov (Azija, Evropa, Afrika):

Now, first of all, let me point out that historians have a terrible track record of predictions. Not only do we get it wrong, but risibly, almost laughably so. But the core of that argument is really the U.S. dollar. You know, what I’m arguing is, think about the nature of American society, OK? We have a very weak social safety net. We pay, historically, very low wages. And the only way that American workers — all the way up to even the middle, middle class — can survive, is because our goods are the cheapest in the world. Because the U.S. dollar is the global reserve currency, we can issue treasury notes and the world will buy them. And basically, nations of the world send us oil and machinery, and we give them brightly colored paper called “T Notes.” And that’s why we’ve built up these massive debts.

And once the U.S. dollar is no longer the dominant component of the basket of currencies that the IMF proclaims, once it’s just one of the currencies along with, let’s say, the Euro and the renminbi, the Chinese currency — and that’s happening, the renminbi is now part of the basket of the currencies — then, suddenly, we won’t be able to issue those Treasury notes in quite the same way, and the price of our commodities are going to go up to world prices. And that whole social contract that we have — of lousy wages but cheap products — that social contract begins to break down. And the adjustment of that social contract is going to produce all kinds of tensions in what is a delicately calibrated, balanced social arrangement in the United States — not a particularly strong one, not particularly resilient. We’re a fragile superpower.

If China continues to grow at anything like the level that it has — It’s going to slow down, of course. India’s going to come on strong. But, again, both of those powers are going to take away U.S. markets, they’re going to take away U.S. power, U.S. prestige. As China grows, and then India grows right along behind it, our power comparatively erodes, the dollar fades, and then that delicate social safety net gets shredded, and that social balance collapses into tensions.

I mean, that’s still very possible. You know, by 2030, I would be surprised if the dollar’s percentage of the IMF’s — the International Monetary Fund’s — basket of currencies remains what it is today. I’d expect further declines.

…

It’s the geopolitics, OK? The Eurasian landmass is home to 70 percent of the world’s population and productivity. 70 percent. So, if you dominate Eurasia, to go back to Sir Halford Mackinder, if you dominate the world-island — this tricontinental landmass of Europe, Asia, and Africa — you’re dominating more than 70 percent. You’re actually getting up to 75 percent, even close to 80 percent of the world’s population and productivity. And that means that then there are these outlying islands like Iceland, and Greenland, and North America, and South America.

…

Well, that was how empty that center of Eurasia was, back in 2007. It’s not like that anymore. Now, he would’ve found rail line or, more likely, an oil pipeline to guide him that he could have followed. China has overcome that distance that separated Europe and Asia, and brought them together as a single continent, and fulfilling Xi Jinping’s idea of a single market that’s going to dominate 70 percent of the world’s population and productivity. And that’s what’s going to change.

And so, China is clearly dominant in Eurasia, and becoming more so every single day. And we are just falling back to becoming an influential regional power in North America and — if we’re maybe lucky and play our diplomatic cards right — maybe South America as well. If China continues its strategy of building that geopolitical substrate and then letting these periodic eruptions, these diplomatic eruptions erupt by natural course of events, U.S. power is just going to slowly ebb away. There won’t be any dramatic change. The changes are already evident. 

…

Let’s all look forward to one thing: let’s keep our eye on those negotiations, OK? Because if they take place, and if they take place in Beijing, that’ll be another eruption. That will be one that everybody in the world will recognize. That, you know, whoops, Washington’s time has passed as the world leader. Maybe it really is now Beijing.

Vir: The Intercept