Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was trying to catch up on the day’s readings when he started to review the Opinion Journal site. Your Maximum Leader read Niall Ferguson’s latest there.

Your Maximum Leader recently received a copy of Ferguson’s new book, Colossus. Alas, he hasn’t started it yet, but from the introduction (and from other articles Ferguson has written), it looks to be a thought provoking read. Not at all unlike the Opinion Journal piece.

Your Maximum Leader hasn’t really given much thought to an apolar world. Mainly because your Maximum Leader has always assumed that China or India would fill in the other superpower status (recently vacated by the late Soviet Union). Your Maximum Leader has never believed that Europe would act as a counterbalance to the US, or even gain superpower status. It is an odd collective. Certainly not the Borg, but then again hardly even a Confederacy.

So what happens to the world if the US retreats from its world power status? Would an apolar world develop? One ruled by theocratic impulses like in the 10th Century? Would we devolve into isolated polis? Well, probably not isolated polis… But Ferguson does paint a rather bleak picture of an apolar world.

Is this one of those times when historical analogy might not apply?

Carry on.