Greece will privatize all its infrastructure for starts... and then force the civil servants to lower pensions... and it all else fails, they will default on their debt.
Let's cut to the chase: You're President of the US. The most recent Treasury auction is a total failure, rates spike, more money printing, credibility is totally shot, FOREX markets go haywire, huge run to gold.... the dollar is collapsing in front of your eyes. So Mr. President, how do you use those weapons to strengthen the US Dollar, to avoid its collapse, and maintain the US currency reserve status? By the way, this potential issue looks like it's already addressed by the world's central bankers. They're not dumb. But I won't explain it yet. I'm looking for your answer. You know, the one that involves our military.
The military would sell their weapons for money. Soviet Union, had a damn good military system, still had to default on their debt. Nobody invaded them or anything, the market just priced them out of necessities; thats all. At worst if the U.S does default, probably the scenario would be Washington losing a state here and there. Sell Hawaii to Japan, California to Canada, Nevada to China, New York to Germany, Texas would go their own way. Basically government would be forced to shrink itself by the market, so no more food vouchers, more crime cause there won't be as many police. But who cares about the US, this thread is about Greece.
You should know the answer already if you follow geopolitical developments for the last 30 years. You should also understand why your hypothetical scenario will never happen. As long as there is bi-lateral free trade between China and America, there will always be a customer for US debt. If the trade stops, there will be not so much debt because increased local production will generate more tax revenue for the goverment and it won't need to issue so much debt. The high levels of current US debt, contrary to leftist, Marxist and naive common opinions, are financing the next level of economic and military development. There is good debt and bad debt. US debt is "good" debt. Greek debt is "bad" debt. Use you common sense (rare quality indeed): If you borrow money to start a profitable business that is "good" debt. If you borrow money to buy cars from Germany (Greek debt), that is slow death.
When empires rely on their militairy strength to secure their status basically the game is already over. Internal living standards determine the true sustainability of empires troughout history.
You simply have not enough data to claim any significance for your statement. There were only a few Empires in the history of the world and most failed because they had physical borders with invaders and eventually broke up. Furthermore, none of these empires had weapons of mass destructions. Thus, your analogy if grossly false and based on irrelevant premises.
Intradaybill, there have been a number of recessions in the history of the American empire and a great depression. We also have the historical data of several empires that break apart because they did nothing but use military force to solve their problems with enemies and ended up over-extending their forces and bankrupting themselves because of the huge amount of cost associated with waging war. The soviet union ended up collapsing because the afghan guerrillas made them bleed all their cash out in order to fund the war effort there. The same thing is happening here, you also have the Roman Empire and to their credit the only thing they did severely wrong was over-extend themselves to the point everyone else got fed up with them because of how aggressive they were. The same thing that happened to the soviet union I believe is going to happen to the united states, they may be the opposite in ideology but they have made the same mistakes the soviets and the Romans made. There is PLENTY of data out there and historical data for that matter, you just need to do the damn research and stop believing the lies of politicians and media.
Maybe how a nation runs its economy relates to whether it gets to continue to issue the reserve currency? The day the rest of the world loses confidence in the US dollar and opts for an alternative currency or gold is the day we pay the piper. So the imbeciles don't jump on my terminology ... I use the word day figuratively. It is obviously a process that will stretch out over time.
I do not buy into this propaganda. The Soviet union failed because people had no incentive to work and produce. IT was a slow process of decline. They failed in Afganistan because the USA trained and armed the Taliban. From another point of view, the Soviet Uniton did not collapse but instead chose to reorganize by kicking away states that would inevitably seperate. Russia is still a huge country and the only one that can rival the US militarily. There is no alternative to a US empire. People should pray the US remains an empire. The destabilization of the world would be fatal if US were to collapse. Not even the Russians want that, not even the Chinese. Being a empire has its pros and cons.
"There is no alternative to a US empire" that statement was made by members of every former empire. the US cannot even win wars against two 4th rate nations iran and afghanistan.