Imperial Expansion Amid National Decline

Some Pentagram apparatchik, not specifying where the money will come from, has announced, "Over the long-term lay-down of our forces in the Pacific, we are looking at ways to even bolster that, not necessarily in Korea and Japan, but along the Pacific Rim, particularly in Southeast Asia" — US considers boosting force in Asia: Pentagon.

Of course, such imperial expansion requires enemies — Pentagon Sees N.Korea as Rising Threat. Said the same apparatchink, "[G]iven their pursuit of both the nuclear weapons and their ballistic-missile capabilities, that he sees them being a direct threat not within five years, but sooner than that."