The war has already been won

And who owns most of that debt? China. Obviously it is often argued that it would not be in China's best interest for its US debt to be devalued, and in the short term that would be true. But Chinese strategists have not been looking at the short-term.

With an ever weakening economy, and access to the vital rare minerals severely restricted, the USA's ability to maintain its military dominance will quickly become an impossible task. This will result in a potentially rapid withdrawal from"empire" as it closes one foreign military base after another so to save money.

In twenty years time the USA will still be a major military power, just as Great Britain was in 1945, however its days of dominance will be over. The 21st Century will belong to China, and the only thing in question will be whether the USA's continuing fall will be steady and controlled (like Britain's) or rapid and potentially violent (like the USSR in 1990).

Of course between now and then there will be plenty of jostling for position between the two (and their allies and proxies). In the short term the USA will still keep chasing the wrong prize (oil) and Iran, Yemen and Venezuela are hot favourites for some ‘special attention'. Certainly odds have considerably shortened on Yemen, and its large and mainly untapped oil reserves, being next up since this weeks terrorism "scare" - it would also be a lot quicker and easier to have a paper victory over than the other two contenders.

Akin to what happened in the Cold War between the USA and USSR (1946 to 1990), most future conflicts between the two powers will largely be fought by proxy. With the pending referendum it is likely that Sudan could be where the first Chinese / American proxy war will soon commence. It too has (unsurprisingly) considerable, largely untapped oil reserves.

If there is a big (hot) war between the two then chances are it will probably be over in a flash (or cough as it will probably be fought using biological or genetic weapons). In that case, should the spectre of MAD (mutually assured destruction) have failed, then really all this is immaterial anyway, and one would hope that strategists on both sides would have realised that fact.

Away from black gold (and rare minerals) the other potential war triggers between the two will be water and food. Water will cause local/regional wars without doubt in the coming years. This is especially in the Middle East, central/south Asia and Africa, which are all experiencing rapidly falling water-tables, and increasing upstream pollution. In reality however there  is enough technology around to prevent any serious problems for developed nations such as atmospheric water generators and desalination.

Food however could be a much bigger problem, with climate variability, urbanisation and pollution all being rather non-conducive to the ever increasing food production required by a growing world population.

In 1914 if you had told an Englishman than within a generation the British Empire would be gone, the country bankrupted, and militarily only a second string power he would have laughed so hard that his top-hat would have fallen off. Who is laughing now?