Quote from: deadlizard on April 04, 2011, 04:37:03 PM

Quote from: ryepdx on April 04, 2011, 04:34:03 PM

It's frustrating and a little frightening to imagine what things will look like when the sh*t hits the fan. Undecided

No need to imagine, just look at the periphery of the empire. The collapse has begun

Honestly, looking in the rear view mirror, one can see signs of a breakdown of an empire as far back as 1970. And the same could be said for the USSR as far back as 1955. The problem of a collapsing empire is that it takes quite a long time, and there is no reason to suspect that the modern world will be significantly quicker at such things than the Roman or Ottoman empires. The risks are in the transitional periods anyway, at least to the individual. Clans will fare better, as happened to Roman enclaves as the Roman empire imploded. The small independently functioning regions loyal to Rome preserved the culture for generations longer, functioning as city-states.