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." ?
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.