미국 멸망 5가지 시나리오-The top 144 scenarios.

미국 멸망’ 5가지 시나리오-The top 144 scenarios.

[쿠키뉴스] 2009년 08월 14일(금) 오후 05:45

중국이 8000억 달러가 넘는 미국 국채를 시장에 내다팔기 시작한다. 최대 채권국 중국이 투매를 시작하자 달러가치가 곤두박질치고 물가는 치솟는다. 한편에서는 석유가 고갈되면서 휘발유 값이 뛴다. 석유 중독증 미국인들이 패닉에 빠진다. 이 와중에 이슬람 극단주의 세력이 파키스탄에서 핵무기를 빼돌린 뒤 미 본토를 동시다발로 공격한다. 뉴욕과 워싱턴, 로스앤젤레스 등지에서 한꺼번에 핵폭탄이 터진다.

미국 네티즌들이 투표로 만들어낸 미국 몰락 시나리오다. ‘포스트 아메리카’를 논하는 목소리는 많지만 미국이 가까운 미래에 지도상에서 사라질 것이라고 믿는 이는 없다. 그러나 어떤 국가도 영원하지는 못한다. 미국 역시 생로병사의 길을 걷게 될 것이다. 더구나 슈퍼파워 미국의 항로는 21세기 인류의 미래를 결정한 최대 변수이다. ‘미국은 붕괴되는가’(1999년) ‘문명의 붕괴’(2005) ‘미국은 로마의 길을 걷게 될까’(2007) ‘미국 이후의 세계’(2008) 등 세계 지성들이 끊임없이 미국의 종말을 묻고 탐구하고 토론하는 이유다.

워싱턴포스트가 운영하는 온라인 저널 슬레이트는 지난 주 144가지 미국 붕괴 시나리오를 작성한 뒤 독자 6만 여명을 대상으로 설문조사를 벌였다. 응답을 분석한 결과 ‘중국의 미 국채 투매’로부터 시작해 ‘핵무기 테러’로 이어지는 멸망 시나리오가 만들어졌다. 답변은 오늘을 사는 미국인들의 고민과 공포를 그대로 보여준다.

최대 위협은 ‘핵무기 테러’(10.5%)였다. 이슬람 극단주의 탈레반이나 알카에다 세력이 파키스탄에서 핵무기를 빼돌린 뒤 미국을 공격해서 수백 만 명이 목숨을 잃는 대재앙 시나리오. 제2차 세계대전 이후 지구인의 DNA에 새겨진 핵공포와 9·11테러가 가져온 악몽이 기묘하게 결합된 모양새다. 적어도 미국인의 의식 속에서 만큼은 ‘대테러정국’이 진행형이라는 사실도 확인할 수 있다. 2위 ‘석유고갈’(9.3%)과 5위 ‘이스라엘·아랍 전쟁’(7.6%) 역시 전후 세계가 공유해온 고전적 인류 멸망 시나리오와 닮았다.

1980년대 일본의 위협은 중국으로 완벽하게 대체됐다. 4위 ‘중국의 미 국채 투매(8.2%)’ 시나리오에서는 커지는 중국의 영향력에 대한 두려움과 현 경제위기에 대한 불안이 뒤섞여있다. ‘항생물질에 대한 내성’(3위·8.5%)은 어떤 약으로도 치료할 수 없는 슈퍼 바이러스가 탄생해 미국을 휩쓸게 된다는 시나리오다. 항생제와 성장촉진제로 뒤범벅이 된 육류에 대한 불안이 원인이다.

인도를 위협으로 느끼는 목소리는 거의 없었다. 미국이 전면전이나 군사력 저하로 멸망하지는 않을 것이라는 굳은 믿음도 드러났다. 남성은 여성보다 중국을 더 두려워했고, 민주당원이 보수적 공화당원들보다 석유고갈을 더 걱정했다.

국민일보 쿠키뉴스 이영미 기자

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How Is America Going To End?

The top 144 scenarios.

 

1. Electromagnetic Pulse(전자전쟁): A nuclear weapon detonated at high elevation could knock out the country's electrical infrastructure, sending us back to the Stone Age. The congressional EMP Commission says an electromagnetic pulse "is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences."

2. Foreign Invasion(외부침입): The Red Dawn scenario: A hostile alliance of foreign powers dispatches a team of elite combat troops to America. They launch a coordinated assault with thousands of paratroopers on key military and communications installations, dealing the U.S. government a fatal blow.

3. Russia Hits the Button(러시아버턴): Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg says the United States should fear "a mistaken attack on our country by the huge Russian arsenal of nuclear weapons." As recently as 1995, a "retaliatory" nuclear strike was barely averted when Russian officials figured out at the last second that what they thought was an enemy strike was really a craft launched to monitor the Northern lights.

4. Loose Nukes(원자탄의 혼란): Taliban fighters wrest nuclear weapons from a destabilized Pakistan. Or al-Qaida acquires a small arsenal of nukes from a disintegrating Russia. The nonstate actors launch against the United States in an attack exponentially worse than 9/11.

5. Dirty Bombs(더러운 폭탄): Terror groups armed with "radiological dispersal devices"—a cocktail of radioactive material and garden-variety explosives—launch coordinated attacks in a dozen major cities. The attacks destabilize the government and break our spirit. The terrorists win.

6. Abandonment (자기포기): After a series of devastating attacks, Washington admits it can no longer protect large swaths of the nation. The United States contracts to a smaller core that's easier to defend.

7. Suicidal Tyran t(자멸적 폭군): An Ahmadinejad-like figure strikes at the heart of the Great Satan, launching nuclear weapons at major American cities and pushing the country to anarchy.

8. Internal Guerrilla Warfare (내전): Smugglers and street gangs join forces to contest the authority of the U.S. government—first along the Mexican border and later in pockets of major cities—in order to maintain control of lucrative illicit markets.

9. Mercenary Armies: As in the seventh season of 24, a military contractor goes rogue and attacks the United States. Not even Jack Bauer can save us.

10. Space Attacks (우주전쟁): A coalition of malevolent nations with hyper-advanced space programs strikes at the United States from the outer limits, disrupting all of our communications and rendering our conventional Army powerless.

11. Information War(정보전쟁): A rogue state, terror organization, or group of malevolent hackers takes down America's infrastructure by infiltrating every system that's controlled by computers: television stations, traffic signals, telecommunications, the stock market, the power grid. As seen in Live Free or Die Hard.

12. Push-Button Warfare(버턴전쟁): Nanoscale production allows anyone to make tanks and flying drones with the press of a button. With sophisticated weaponry available to all, the nation-state ceases to be an important entity.

13. Peak Oil(오일고갈): Petroleum production reaches terminal decline. Oil becomes too expensive to extract, and alternative energies can't maintain our fossil-fuel-dependent lifestyle. The developed world goes kaput, with gas-happy America leading the way to the gutter.

14. Peak Water(물 고갈): The overpopulated, overheated Southwest runs out of H20, instigating mass migration to Canada.

15. Overpopulation(인구과잉): A spike in birth rates—or massive levels of immigration—increases the population of the United States to 1 billion. America doesn't have the carrying capacity to support its new crush of citizens, and a die-off ensues.

16. Space Harvesting(우주광물탈취): China, Russia, and South Korea corral asteroids and harvest them for valuable minerals. As the rest of the developed world gets rich, the United States—whose space program is hopelessly behind—falls from its perch.

17. Oil 2.0(석유쟁탈): China, which produces more than 95 percent of the world's rare earth metals (materials like europium and erbium), develops a major, rare-earth-fueled breakthrough in energy production. The United States, lacking the natural resources needed for this amazing new power source, becomes impoverished and insignificant.

18. Obesity(비만): one of the fattest nations in human history keeps getting fatter. An increasingly sedentary society beset by health problems can no longer compete with the world's fitter nations.

19. Geothermal Energy(지구에너지폭발): In the post-petroleum age, we generate electricity by drilling into the Earth's interior to extract stored heat; we drill too deeply, causing massive earthquakes.

20. Nuclear Waste(핵폐기물): Yucca Mountain and other nuclear storage facilities begin to leak radioactive waste. Everyone gets cancer.

21. End of English (영어권종말): Chinese economic power combined with an influx of non-English-speaking immigrants to the United States leads to the decline of anglophone American culture worldwide.

22. Media Piracy (미디어해적): The American film and music industries go bankrupt as piracy becomes universal. The United States ceases to be the world's leading exporter of culture, and the country declines in influence as images of America no longer proliferate worldwide.

23. Decadence(타락): Rome had bread and circuses. America's descent into a mindless stupor, historian Niall Ferguson argues, can be seen in the popularity of pornography and NASCAR. If you think ragging on porn and stock-car racing is a bit of a cliché, please substitute mixed martial arts and reality television.

24. Mass Incarceration(무차별감금): Rising rates of imprisonment lead the entire country to develop the social ills of America's inner cities: Ex-offenders can't find good jobs or marriage partners, and society slowly collapses.

25. End of Homeownership (자기 집 소유 끝): The mortgage crisis kills off the American dream. Civic pride goes down the toilet, and the GDP shrinks as the ownership society shrivels up.

26. Math and Science(수학과 과학소질저하): American math and science aptitude deteriorates, killing innovation in the tech sector and pushing America to the back of the line of post-industrial economies.

27. Intelligent Design(지능적인 산업): Creationists succeed in getting evolution pushed out of textbooks. Scientific illiteracy dooms America to second-class status.

28. Laziness(나태 태만): "Endlessly gaming, chatting, and chilling with their iPods, the next generation already has a more tenuous connection to 'Western civilization' than most parents appreciate," historian Niall Ferguson writes. While everyone in France continues to take vacation in July and August, the next generation of Americans refuses to work except in July and August.

29. Oldocracy(노인화): As the population ages, there is growing discord between old fogeys with lots of voting power and younger people, increasingly foreign-born. The older generation seizes power and wastes all of America's money on increased Social Security benefits.

30. Suburban Slums (밀려나는 빈민굴): Today's McMansions will become tomorrow's tenements, turning America's exurban sprawl into a hellacious backwater. "About 25 years ago, Escape From New York perfectly captured the zeitgeist," Christopher B. Leinberger writes in the Atlantic. "Two or three decades from now, the next Kurt Russell may find his breakout role in Escape From the Suburban Fringe."

31. Christianity(기독교팽창): Just as, per Edward Gibbon, the rise of religion killed Rome's fighting spirit, increasing spirituality turns America into a nation of pacifists. We get attacked and don't fight back.

32. Militant Islam(호전적 이슬람): Muslims feel increasingly alienated by American society. Al-Qaida gets a much bigger toehold, giving it a staging ground for devastating domestic terror attacks that rip the nation asunder.

33. Drug Boom(약 남용): Americans turn to advanced, hyper-addictive recreational drugs that are tailored to each individual user's body chemistry. Civilization dies in a drug-induced haze.

34. Decline of Civic Spirit(시민정신저하): As happened in Rome, excessive taxation leads citizens to lose respect for the state. The all-volunteer Army shrinks as no one cares to assume the risks of fighting for the country.

35. Gay Marriage(동성자 결혼): As the institution spreads across the country, splinter groups bemoan the practice and agitate to form their own, heterosexual-only state.

36. Wealth Gap(빈부격차): The divide between rich and poor grows. The nation's lower classes, increasingly resentful of their impoverished condition, launch guerrilla attacks against the depraved, prosperous elites.

37. Complexity(복잡다양성): Anthropologist Joseph Tainter and political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon argue that societies benefit from complexity (irrigation networks to prevent droughts, for example) up to a certain point but that too much intricacy can be a bad thing. Homer-Dixon explains: "As an expanding portion of a society's wealth is sucked into further boosting complexity, its reserves to deal with unexpected contingencies fall."

38. Multiculturalism(문화다원주의): In a 2004 speech, former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm declared that America is doomed because it has gone from a melting pot to a "bilingual-bicultural country." Diversity "stresses differences rather than commonalities," he said. "Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other—that is, when they are not killing each other."

39. Smallpox(천연두): A rogue scientist looses the virus from a Russian vault, and terrorists use the disease to attack and destabilize America.

40. Swine Flu(돼지유행성감기): The pandemic worsens, devastating American society to a much greater extent than the 1918 flu pandemic. Mortality from the virus itself is high, but pandemic expert Dr. Michael T. Osterholm argues that the disruption of supply chains will be far worse. When countries shut their borders to quarantine themselves, we'll be unable to import the food, energy, and acute-care drugs we need.

41. Super-AIDS(수퍼 에이즈): The disease evolves, and airborne transmission spreads it faster than ever. Even the world's richest nations are unable to get it under control.

42. Synthesized Super Virus(합성된 수퍼 바이러스): In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman suggests one scenario for the end of humanity: "a psychotically obsessed, biochemically trained terrorist creatively splice[s] something together that evolves faster than we develop resistance—maybe by clipping genetic material into the versatile SARS virus, which could spread both sexually and via the air."

43. Anthrax(탄저병): Terrorists in crop dusters drop aerosolized anthrax across a dozen metropolitan areas, sending the nation into a panic.

44. Tropical Diseases(열대병): Global warming enables insects to spread their diseases northward. A weakened America lacks the wealth and resources to stave off malaria outbreaks.

45. Antibiotic Resistance(항생저항물질): As a result of factory farming and spiking sales of antibacterial hand soap, superstrains of bacteria develop that are resistant to medicine. Public health officials can do nothing but throw up their hands.

46. The Rapture(환희 뒤에 절망): Christians are instantly transported to heaven. The nonbelievers left behind in America struggle to survive as Muslim countries gain in power relative to the United States.

47. Obama as God(오바마 종교): The president, by far the most popular in history domestically and abroad, becomes the leader of a global religious cult. If that sounds unrealistic, sub Tiger Woods for Obama.

48. Dec. 21, 2012(요한계시록): According to an ancient Mayan prophecy—at least as interpreted by the kind of people who believe this sort of thing—this is a likely date of the apocalypse. In the event of the apocalypse, the United States will struggle to carry on.

49. Alien Invasion(외계인침입): Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev once discussed banding together to fight off a UFO attack. For all the happy talk about cooperation, when the tractor beams come down, it's every country for itself.

50. Voluntary Human Extinction(자발적 인류멸종): A movement to end breeding rises in popularity as climate change and resource wars intensify.

51. Supercollider(수퍼 입자가속기): Legend has it that Switzerland's Large Hadron Collider could generate "mini black holes" that devour the universe. Turns out that idea was based on faulty science. But maybe the people who discovered the faulty science were themselves using faulty science. Eh, probably not.

52. Asteroid(소행성): NASA's Near Earth Object Program reports there's a less than 1-in-45,000 chance the asteroid Apophis will smash into Earth on April 13, 2036. And there's no guarantee we'll be crater-free if we dodge this particular space rock. A scientist at the Aerospace Corporation estimates a 10 percent chance per century of "a dangerous space-object strike." Duck!

53. Supervolcano(초화산): The last volcanic "super-eruption" near Yellowstone happened 640,000 years ago. If we're unlucky enough to be alive during the next blowup, the U.S. Geological Survey reports that "[t]hick ash deposits would bury vast areas of the United States."

54. Hurricanes(하리케인): Six of the 11 most-intense Atlantic hurricanes have come since 1998. Scientists have yet to come to a consensus on whether warmer waters generate more and bigger hurricanes, but if coastal-city-destroying megastorms become a yearly occurrence, the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard could be destroyed and abandoned.

55. New Madrid Earthquake(제2 마드리드 지진): An earthquake of 8.0 magnitude or higher has a 7 percent to 10 percent chance of cracking up the New Madrid Seismic Zone—a region that covers parts of Missouri, Illinois, and three other states—in the next 50 years. (Walter Jon Williams' novel The Rift imagines a ginormous New Madrid quake destroying Chicago and New Orleans and hurling the mighty Mississippi off course.)

56. Floods(홍수): As temperatures rise, more of the country is at risk of massive, regular flooding. Particularly flood-prone areas—New Orleans, Miami, Houston—must be abandoned.

57. Food Supply(음식공급중단): An engineered wheat virus devastates America's staple crop. We all starve.

58. The Matrix (사람중심의 한계): The futurist Ray Kurzweil argues that by 2045 "technical progress will be so fast that unenhanced human intelligence will be unable to follow it." When we have "full-immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system"—essentially, a merger with our computers—nations won't much matter anymore.

59. Outer Space Emigration(우주공간이주): America runs out of arable land and breathable air. Everyone moves to the space station.

60. Gray Goo(자기증식기계): The nanotechnology nightmare scenario: Out-of-control self-replicating robots keep making more of themselves until they consume all of the matter on Earth. "Gray goo would surely be a depressing ending to our human adventure on Earth," Bill Joy wrote in Wired, "far worse than mere fire or ice, and one that could stem from a simple laboratory accident. Oops."

61. Robot Overlords(로봇군주): Superintelligent robots supplant humankind as the planet's dominant beings. Flesh-and-blood people die out, unable to compete with the superior androids.

62. Neo-Humans(신인류탄생): Life extension becomes attainable for the superrich, creating a long-lived aristocracy. Resentment builds up in the poor, leading to class warfare between the living gods and the earthly peons.

63. Space Debris (공간파편): Missile tests generate a huge quantity of detritus, which starts blowing up satellites and threatening our security and communications.

64. Diet(다이어트죽음): An extremely popular new diet scheme turns out to be unhealthy in the long term. We all develop heart disease and die.

65. Cloning(유전생물복제): We put aside our ethical concerns and become obsessed with designing perfect offspring. Everyone has the same bum genes, and the population plummets.

66. Big Brother(인공지능정부): A supercomputer with hyperadvanced artificial

intelligence takes over the government. See Eagle Eye and Colossus: The Forbin Project.

67. Money Virus(해커금융파괴): Hackers take down the American financial system with malicious code that destroys all digital bank records.

68. Cell Phones(세포이동 휴대전화): Our mobile devices really do give us brain

cancer.

69. Vermont Independence(분리독립): A majority of the Green Mountain State's residents vote to form the Second Vermont Republic. The successful secessionist movement inspires other separatist groups, and the United States splinters.

70. Texas Secession: Gov. Rick Perry or a like-minded successor makes good on his sensationalist rhetoric and turns the Lone Star State into its own nation.

71. "The Bubba Effect"(부바영향): Glenn Beck's end-of-America scenario: Survivalists on the border take the law into their own hands, shooting illegal immigrants on sight. The federal government cracks down, and the put-upon "Bubbas" revolt.

72. Cascadia and Novacadia: Quebec secedes and Canada breaks into pieces. on the West Coast, British Columbia merges with Washington and Oregon. To the east, the four Atlantic provinces join Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire.

73. Alaska and Hawaii: Nativist movements win favor, pushing the American flag back to 48 stars.

74. Geographical Sorting(지리학상분리): "Communities of sameness" form as like-minded individuals cluster together and refuse to live alongside those they disagree with.

75. La República del Norte(멕시코확장): Professor Charles Truxillo argues that a growing Latino population in the Southwest will eventually reclaim the territory that Mexico lost to the United States in the 1800s.

76. Red vs. Blue(홍청분리전쟁): Philosophical and cultural divisions grow deeper, leading to a civil war between the red states and blue states and a national schism.

77. State Sovereignty Movements(state주권운동): Legislatures in states like New Hampshire pass bills to limit federal power. Built-in escape clauses allow states to secede when they perceive that the feds are infringing on their rights.

78. Transition Cities(변형도시): Huge groups of survivalists abandon major cities to live as locavores in small, agrarian communities.

79. Nine Nations(9개나라): North America abandons its arbitrary borders and splits into regions with cultural and economic similarities, such as the ones laid out in Joel Garreau's Nine Nations of North America.

80. Racial Warfare(인종분쟁): James Howard Kunstler suggests that increased poverty will spark violence in America's urban ghettos, leading to riots that "will likely resolve into a more generalized and protracted guerrilla warfare of the kind that has been going on in third-world countries for decades."

81. Emigration(이주): Unemployment reaches record numbers, and Americans leave the country in search of the next land of opportunity. The more people leave, the worse the economy gets, which encourages still more people to leave.

82. Tribalism(부족주의): The nation-state declines in importance, and people begin to see themselves more as members of international religious and ethnic groups: Jews, Mormons, Han Chinese, etc.

83. Transnationalism(트랜스내셔널리즘): Upper-class people around the world abandon national affiliations, identifying more with one another than with any particular state.

84. World Government: America is subsumed into a global body—a souped-up United Nations, for example—that governs all world affairs.

85. North American Union(북미연방): Canada, the United States, and Mexico merge into a single country. Conspiracy theorists like Jerome Corsi believe secret plans for the NAU have already been hatched. Coming soon: a single North American currency called the amero.

86. Globalization(세계화): Everyone else rises and America falls in relative terms—the Fareed Zakaria thesis.

87. Opt-In Government(선택적 정부): Governance becomes divorced from geography. People who live in the United States can choose to be governed by the laws of Sweden and vice-versa.

88. Axis of Evil(악마의 축): North Korea and Iran team up and wreak havoc on their mutual Western enemies.

89. Al-Qaida(알카에다): Global recruitment efforts pick up, and the terror network attacks America with greater frequency and effectiveness.

90. India and Pakistan(인도와 파키스탄분쟁): The Asian adversaries nuke each other, leading to World War III. America gets pulled in and is permanently weakened by a long, costly war far from home.

91. Neo-Colonialism(신식민지정책): Countries such as South Korea and Saudi Arabia have begun buying arable land abroad—essentially, buying portions of foreign countries—and shipping the crops they grow back home. If portions of the United States get bought by a foreign company, America could become part of someone else's mercantile empire.

92. Socialist Revolution(사회주의혁명): The global economic crisis discredits capitalism. Angry workers revolt, and communism replaces representative democracy.

93. Israel-Arab War(이스라엘아랍전쟁): All-out mayhem in the Middle East as Egypt, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and more go to war. The United States moves to protect Israel and gets sucked into a generation-long conflict that saps the national will and treasury.

94. Canada Fails(케나다의 실패): Climate change is more extreme in northern latitudes, and Canadians try to stream south into the United States, destabilizing the entire continent.

95. Mexico Fails(멕시코의 실패): Our southern neighbor collapses and becomes a narco-state. Warlords take over, pushing millions of Mexicans to seek refuge in the United States.

96. Europe Fails(유럽의 실패): A failure to assimilate immigrants pushes the continent into anarchy. A pan-European war spills over to the rest of the world, sucking in the United States and eventually destroying the economic and cultural power of the entire West.

97. Pax Sinica(팍스차이나): China replaces the United States as the world's hegemon. A weakened America pulls back from world affairs.

98. Pax Indica(팍스인디아): India replaces the United States as the world's hegemon. A weakened America pulls back from world affairs.

99. Pax Europa(팍스유로): The European Union replaces the United States as the world's hegemon. A weakened America pulls back from world affairs.

100. Space Race(우주경쟁): China or Russia or Singapore leads colonization and technological development in outer space. We get left behind on an increasingly crummy planet.

101. Unilateralism(일방주의): America refuses to compromise on climate change and pursues its own foreign policy, making enemies of the entire world.

102. Isolationism(고립주의): America pulls back from world affairs, getting left out of a newly forming global community of cooperation.

103. Wildfires(산불화재): Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice. For those who favor fire, consider the 2006 Science report that "longer, warmer summers have resulted in a fourfold increase of major [U.S.] wildfires and a sixfold increase in the area of forest burned, compared to the period from 1970 to 1986."

104. Megadrought(메가 건조): According to Mark Lynas' Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, if the world gets one degree warmer, the Great Plains are at risk of turning into an expanse of sand dunes. Bad news for American agriculture (and everyone who lives in Nebraska).

105. Climate Migration(기후이주): Refugees from Mexico, the Southwest, and coastal cities flee the devastation wrought by climate change, overwhelming the American cities that remain healthy.

106. Pesticides(살충제): Overuse makes the soil barren and/or gives us all cancer.

107. Climate Wars(기후전쟁): Individual countries or "climate pirates" conduct

experiments to try to halt global warming. War breaks out over uncertainty regarding the cause of freak weather events.

108. Geoengineering(지구공학): A non-American nation or group of nations succeeds in using technology to turn off climate change. The United States loses power and prestige. An even worse case: The nation that turned off climate change charges us rent to live on Earth.

109. Bottled Water(병속에 물): We continue to drink the stuff in prodigious amounts, and all the phthalates in the bottles cause massive health problems, including infertility.

110. Modified Organisms(변형유기물): A superhearty plant engineered to be resistant to pesticides and drought grows out of control and chokes out other life-forms.

111. Alien Species(외래종자): The American equivalent of the cane toad—the Burmese python, perhaps—eats everyone and everything in its path.

112. Ice Age(빙하시대): As in The Day After Tomorrow, circulation of water in the North Atlantic slows down, bringing on a new ice age. The northern United States gets buried under a glacier.

113. Rising Sea Levels(해일): As Miami, New Orleans, and the California coast disappear, migrants swarm to the center of the country and overwhelm the nation's dwindling resources.

114. Heat Shock(폭염): In hotter growing seasons, staple crops succumb to withering temperatures, imperiling the national food supply.

115. Ocean Acidification(해양산성화): Increased absorption of carbon dioxide causes the pH of the oceans to decrease continually, leading to mass extinctions.

116. Gerrymandering(게리맨더링): The lack of competitive congressional races creates de facto permanent elected offices. Districts are designed to reinforce tenure and identity politics, delegitimizing American democracy.

117. Social Security(사회 안전): The Treasury runs out of money to pay entitlements. The elderly stop getting their checks, and everyone loses faith in the federal government.

118. Cars(화석연로고갈): Suburbanization and investment in the Interstate Highway System force the United States to maintain gas-guzzling, polluting automobiles long after the rest of the world has moved to more sensible transportation systems. Our refusal to wean ourselves off fossil fuels hastens the country's decline.

119. one-Party Rule(일당통치): The Republican (or Democratic) Party becomes marginalized to the extent that it barely exists as a political entity. With no checks and balances, the Democrats (or Republicans) abuse their unprecedented power, becoming unimaginably corrupt.

120. Military Overstretch(군사력증대): The American equivalent of the overreaching that many historians say doomed the Romans. The shorthanded U.S. military fights multiple wars on multiple fronts, and our overextended troops get divided and conquered.

121. Patriot Act(패트리어트 행동: 시민감시): A series of 9/11-style attacks leads to an expansion of the Patriot Act. The state puts cameras on every street corner, listens in on every cell phone call, and compels citizens to take loyalty oaths.

122. Unitary Executive(하나의 행정부): A Dick Cheney acolyte assumes the presidency and renders Congress powerless with a stream of executive orders and signing statements that give him total control over the country.

123. Declining Military Standards(퇴보하는 군대표준): The U.S. Army has continually lowered the bar for incoming recruits to reach recruitment goals—the Army reports that a mere 44.6 percent of its 2007 recruits were "high-quality." As Slate's Fred Kaplan says, "a dumber army is a weaker army."

124. Food Contamination(음식오염): Terrorists add a chemical agent to food at a distribution center where tons of consumables are processed daily. Everyone who eats the tainted vittles dies.

125. The End of History(역사종말): American values propagate throughout the world as representative democracy and capitalism reign. America loses its distinctiveness and identity as the world becomes one happy nation.

126. Corporate Takeover(기업인수): In Are We Rome?, Cullen Murphy lays out a scenario whereby international corporations "grow in relative power, untethered to any one sliver of national geography" and become "indisputable lords of the world's water, its food, its information, its health, its energy, its transportation, its software, its music, its security, its violence." People identify more with their companies than their countries; your nation becomes more akin to your favorite soccer team.

127. Cronyism(연고주의): A succession of corrupt administrations fills government posts with duds like former FEMA head Michael Brown. Incompetence reigns.

128. Tax Revolts(세금반란): Tea parties turn into tea guerrilla movements as citizens rebel against excessive taxation.

129. Military Coup(군 쿠데타): In 1992, an Air Force officer named Scott Dunlap wrote an essay called "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012." In Dunlap's fictional future, the military takes over the country when the public loses faith in democratically elected leaders' ability to deal with national security threats. The armed forces—the only institution that anyone believes can keep the country the safe—tosses the politicos aside and takes the wheel.

130. Isolation of Elites(엘리트격리): Jared Diamond says that in civilizations that collapse, the "elite are particularly likely to do things that profit them but hurt everybody else." The rich decision-makers hide out in gated communities playing golf and drinking bottled water, failing to recognize or care that America is collapsing around them.

131. Theocracy(神權정치): The Christian right rises to political power, doing away with the separation of church and state. Constitution: out. Ten Commandments: in.

132. Illegal Immigration(불법이민): Refugees from failed states swarm into the United States at historic rates, leading to violent conflicts with American citizens and battles over limited resources.

133. Privatization(민영화): In Are We Rome?, Cullen Murphy theorizes that we could be undone by our "privatization binge … putting into private hands all manner of activities once thought to be public tasks: collecting the nation's taxes, patrolling its streets, defending its borders."

134. Bureaucracy(관료주의): American government grows so large and unwieldy that it's unable to respond swiftly to impending crises. We all drown in a sea of red tape.

135. Hyperinflation(초 인프레이션): The federal government prints too much money, and it takes a wheelbarrow full of dollars to buy a loaf of bread. Individuals lose their life savings, and the American economy becomes a permanent weakling.

136. FDIC Fails(미국 연방예금보험공사실패): After a series of catastrophic bank failures, the FDIC runs out of money to insure individuals' bank accounts. Millions head to the poorhouse and stage a revolt against the ineffectual state.

137. World Currency(세계기축통화): Central banks around the world dump the dollar in favor of a new international reserve currency. America instantly loses its economic primacy.

138. Wall Street Cleverness(월가의 장난): The nongeniuses who brought us the

credit-default swap create a new set of poorly understood (and poorly regulated) financial instruments that completely finish off the economy.

139. State Bankruptcies(주정부파산): Kansas, California, and more states can't make payroll or provide unemployment benefits. The cash-strapped federal government is unable to bail them out and chaos reigns from coast to coast.

140. Rods From God(신의 회초리): America's enemies besiege the United States with bundled tungsten rods dropped from outer space—weapons of the future described by Popular Science as "space-launched darts that strike like meteors." Some critics argue that the rods would vaporize before they hit the ground. Nevertheless, Rods From God were mentioned in a 2003 Air Force document that details potential new space weaponry.

141. China Unloads U.S. Treasurys(중 US국채 팔기): Unwilling to finance any more of America's debt, China dumps its investment in American Treasury securities and buys up gold. With America a lousy investment, there aren't any other buyers out there. The country goes bankrupt.

142. Nationalized Industries(산업국유화): The government bails out the airlines, telecommunications firms, department stores, and chain restaurants. State-run businesses aren't nimble enough to complete globally, and the economy sinks.

143. Default on Debt(부채불이행): America misses its debt payments, and the United States turns into a northern extension of Latin America. In January, the U.S. economics editor of the Economist wrote default "is no longer unthinkable."

144. Deficit Spending(재정적자누적): Enormous federal outlays increase the deficit by trillions upon trillions, forcing tax rates to absurd levels. Taxpayers revolt.