Well that's the thing about extremists... they don't care if their empire turns out worse; they just want their name on it and their god's guts squeezed in the gears.
Yeah, luckily there is just one group of people that have a tendency to do that right now beyond us, and that are the Muslims. Fortunately for us they are not on good terms with any of the other empires, barely with themselves.
- Russia got their own Muslim minority to suppress and keep in chess, they wouldn't support a Muslim empire if the muslim nations got together as the E.U have. Russians are very aggressive when it comes to encroachment like that.
- China has a more passive-aggressive fear of the Muslim religion, more so than against christianity, since it is a bit less aggressive in the "unified empire" rhetoric. China keeps to itself as long as it can trade and be left alone. A Muslim empire that starts trying to chip in on Chinese resources in Africa and Eurasia is going to get great-walled.
- India hates Muslims and won't have much to do with them, besides, they got enough right now keeping themselves occupied, not a big army running around outside here. Pretty much a "Outsource to us and we'll help you, but stop preaching already." Mentality
We also got other entities like Venezuela which likes to ally and aid opponents of The US empire. I would like to say Venezuela is a budding empire-builder trying to expand it's influences to unpopular nations and earn money that way. Though it seems that neighboring countries don't really like that. Brazil and the other south-American nations are pro-western in my opinion, even though they traffic a lot of drugs to us.
But this guy is no better than the modern day Nostradamus, spewing what seems like sense, but underestimates the lengths to mass human survival in this century. I would like the West to fall as much as any 80 year old, but probably not the likely outcome.
He does have a lot of experience though, he anticipated the fall of the Soviet union based on wars and peace-agreements. He seems to have a very good sense of the international power-dynamic compared to generic political animals with agendas. He speaks his mind with little interest in sides, which is refreshing.
I don't understand what you mean about "underestimating the lengths of mass human survival this century". Sounds like some food crisis. Also don't get your "80-year old wishing the west to die" reference, if anything your average 80-year-old would be hardcore nationalists most of the time. The outcome is quite likely if the west just sit around doing nothing but bicker about utopian philosofies like anarcho-capitalism and communism, and don't actually get anything done. I wish there was a "STFU-And-build-me-a-nation-bitch" philosophy out there.