What would happen to a modern society like ours if a resource (or two) that we take for granted – and that we depend upon for survival - were to suddenly become scarce? For example, what if water or oxygen supplies could no longer support the global population? Would there be worldwide panic and chaos? Or would society somehow mould itself around the circumstances? Relatedly, what would happen if we ran out of energy sources to power our industrialised civilization? Would we voluntarily scale back production and global standards of living? Or would such a reorganisation demand state intervention?

Pax Americana is over. Challenges from Vietnam and the Balkans to the Middle East and September 11 have revealed the limits of American supremacy. Will the United States learn to fade quietly, or will U.S. conservatives resist and thereby transform a gradual decline into a rapid and dangerous fall?