>>14354020It is a comfortable lead, just not for the future generations. It's quite clear you actually understand the point, but what you're saying is really tangential rather than counter to anything I said.
The leadership will not feel any consequences for their bad policies. The US continues being quite unthreatened by any competitor, and only when there is an actual, concrete threat, are societies required to select for competence in leadership. Iraq and Afghanistan were terrible decisions, but it just didn't matter, because the US was never going to face a threat to either its existence or its position as world leader because of them, and any other consequences were so far down the line, there was no reason for the Bush administration to care. A society which is already in a dominant position doesn't feel such an urgent need to improve itself and future generations, because the relative cost for not doing so is far less perceptible.
There isn't any coherent argument against this. It's just what societies do.