Talk:Superpower collapse

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The article was below here seems rather non-NPOV. Certaintly the Soviet Union has collapsed; the article suggests that the United States is about to do so as well, which would be very controversial (and in my view, and probably most other peoples, false). And I'm not aware of any "popular pressure for regime change" in the US. -- SJK

Is the person below trying to suggest that the United States was behind 9/11?

Superpower collapse

The two superpowers of the second half of the 20th century, the USSR and the USA underwent tremendous political change during the decades before and after the turn of the century (2000).

The changes in the USSR occurred most dramatically during the 1980s, with the most dramatic event being the destruction of the Berlin Wall, while the changes in the USA occurred during the 2000s, with notable events being the grassroots democratic protests against the World Trade Organisation meeting in the Battle of Seattle in Dec 1999, and the crime against humanity which occurred on 11 September 2001 in New York and sparked off vast, irrational overreactions by the government leading to anger and popular pressure for regime change.

In both cases, improved communications and many-to-many networking technology combined with grassroots struggles for basic human rights in contributing to major political changes, which initially seemed minor, but in fact were very deep-rooted.

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Battle of Seattle? Please. -- Zoe

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How about the fall of the British Empire? That's probably not considered a "superpower collapse", but it would be worth mentioning even so, since, technically, it was. -- Sam

Two problems with that, one, the term “collapse” suggests a sudden and complete breakdown of a superpower into a weakened country - the “collapse” of the British Empire and the dwindling influence of Great Britain as a superpower wasn’t atoll a collapse but instead slow and steadily decline over many years in absolute power it had as a world dominator, and two, the decline wasn’t unlimited due to the fact that the UK does still currently retain power of many overseas territories and also remains powerful in that it is both the sole/main regional power in Europe and a great power globally.

The USSR fits the “collapse” criteria well, but I don’t think the UK or the British Empire can be referred to have collapsed because of the long time it took to dissemble the empire and because of the UK’s ongoing military, economic and (still relatively) influential standing in the world - thus using “collapse” would not really be appropriate as the country has never really been on its knees.

My opinion at least.81.111.222.205 16:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Add the Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire (1206-1368) should be added as an ancient example of superpower collapse. It spanned the majority of Eurasia and was the largest contiguous land empire in history. -Artanisen (talk) 22:01, 9 January 2022 (UTC)