America and Europe can rise from the ashes.

An economic slump could in fact kickstart the old superpowers, while halting so-called emerging ones, says Edward Luttwak
At a time when falling property values struggle to match the accumulated trillions of mortgage debt, when supposedly safe shares fall to zero overnight, and when the unprecedented obligations taken on by the US Treasury have eroded the credibility of even the dollar itself, predictions of America's decline have a certain degree of plausibility.

Naturally, instant journalistic books like Fareed Zakaria's The Post American World are now echoing what everybody knows: that China's economy has been growing fast for almost 30 years, and India's too in the last decade; that the Arabs in the Gulf are enjoying a carnival of consumption in which every sheikhdom is acquiring its own vast international airport and major flag airline for a future of many empty seats; that in Moscow there is a lot of oil and gas money flowing
around, while political power is all in the Kremlin, and grim poverty remains the rule in a hundred smaller towns; that European economic growth is impeded by 'structural obstacles' like the deep conservatism of both trade unions and professional orders, while the European Union's political integration is now not even advancing at glacial pace.

'A Mediterranean's worth of private pools'

And, finally, that the immense accumulated wealth of the United States - the country of 19,000 airports for private aircraft and a Mediterranean's worth of private pools - is being eroded by the refusal to accept pragmatic remedies for national problems, from illegal drugs to mass transport and, above all, health care. This now consumes 17 per cent of the American national income. 97 per cent of 97-year-olds get subsidised quadruple bypass operations.

All this we know already, but what we need to know to determine the future standing of the United States - and Europe - is how they will compare with the other major powers. Will China's Communist party continue to rule? Will it collapse - a big

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