This is why I read the economist. Solid analysis, but some enough bias that you can poke holes in the argument. There no mention of the US currency - arguably the single largest economic source of american influence. Reference to the greenback was conspicuously missing from the article. Granted, the greenback has been on the decline lately, but it still remains the numero uno weapon of choice for foreign reserves all the way from the banks of the nile to the yang-tze. It will be a while before the reserve bank of china replaces the greenback with the euro. Also, the article focuses primarily on american military might. The world today is different from that of the vietnam era. Wars are more economic than military in nature. For example, many would concur that america's foray into baghdad was driven primarily by a greed for oil rather than a moral imperative to replace a vicious dictator. If you look at the list of the richest people in the world, most of them live in the US. Most of the world's weight is in the US. When the price of oil rises and arab coffers overflow with $$, that money finds its way back to wall street. China buys US treasury bills and US companies (Blackstone is a good case in point). At the end of the day, nothing in this world is truly forever. That goes without saying. People talk about China and India overtaking the US. What do they mean? I mean, what's the metric of comparison? Rather, what should be the right metric of comparison? Annual GDP? Per capita GDP? Literacy rate? Poverty rate? Military spending? Cultural influence (e.g. ppl prefering to watch chinese idol vs american idol)? Employment rate? # of new patents? size of largest company? average income level? # of sattelites in space? The list goes on and on. This is why I think that at the end of the day it does not really matter. Being #1 or #2 is ultimately simply serves a sentimental purpose. For most ppl, it does not affect their day to day living. In the long run, china might even "overrtake" the US in per capita GDP. But in the long run we are all dead.