Overstretched?

This "Foreign Affairs" article says "overstretched" is overrated.

Would-be Cassandras have been predicting the imminent downfall of the American imperium ever since its inception. First came Sputnik and "the missile gap," followed by Vietnam, Soviet nuclear parity, and the Japanese economic challenge -- a cascade of decline encapsulated by Yale historian Paul Kennedy's 1987 "overstretch" thesis.

But as it turns out, even our debt isn't likely to sink us.