I get that collapse is a slow ongoing process but when the history books are written, what do you think will be considered the US' own Battle of Ravenna? What will occur that historians can point to it and say, "this was the effective end of the American empire." ?
Assuming a long, slow collapse, I think the popular choice of event will be when a US carrier group is completely wiped out by some Latin American country (let's say Chile) armed with surplus hypersonic missiles from China.
I love the idea of a LATAM nation taking out the literal flagships of American imperialism
The gradual loss of the US's ability to project its force worldwide will mean having to extract more from South America. The carrier fleets aren't going away until they're destroyed. The technology to defeat a carrier group is already out there, and any military technology is going to slowly spread around the world. So I think it's very likely to happen eventually, if the US doesn't suddenly eat itself first.
Sure, but the US is not a rational country. The response would probably be a nuclear strike.