The end [of America as Superpower] is coming

I find Kevin Phillip's final paragraph in his Washington Post article especially chilling. The U.S. is rapidly heading towards a set of problems which history shows are the end of international superpowers.

Unfortunately, three of the preeminent weaknesses displayed in these past declines have been religious excess, a declining energy and industrial base, and debt often linked to foreign and military overstretch. Politics in the United States -- and especially the evolution of the governing Republican coalition -- deserves much of the blame for the fatal convergence of these forces in America today.

Kevin Phillips has a good record as a modern American political historian, and his analysis extends trends which I have previously discussed in this magazine.

I strongly recommend
Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000

as well as
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century

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Kennedy's book describes the broad historical trend, and Phillip's book shows how the trend is more and more being demonstrated in detail by America.