Inrecentyears，especiallysincetheTrumpadministration，prospectsofarupturewithintheAmericanpoliticalsystemhavegainedrenewedattentioninbothacademicandpopularliteratures.Whatwasoncerelegatedtospeculativefictionhas-undertheweightofmountingpolarization，economicdivergence，institutionalfatigue，andshiftinginternationalrelations-becomealegitimateifnot(un)comfortabletopicofanalysis.
Thisvolumeattemptsathoughtexperiment:toexploretheplausiblepathwaysbywhichafederalunioncoulddisintegrateintoalooseralliancecomprisedofvariousautonomousregions.Thisprojectdoesnotindulgeinsensationalistscenarios，butratherdrawsuponobservabletrendsandextrapolatesfromhistoricalprecedents-particularlythatoftheSovietUnion-thoughinthiscase，thedynamicsaremarkedlydifferent.
Insum，Ihopetoofferameasuredaccountofhowaformerlyhegemonicnuclear-armedstatecould，underspecificconditions，graduallycomeapart.Whilethetrajectoryenvisionedinthisnarrativerepresentsonlyoneofthemoreextremeandunlikelypossibilitybywhichsuchaneventcouldoccur，thisvolumenonethelessseekstoilluminatethestructuralvulnerabilitiesuponwhichanyregime-howeverpowerful-ultimatelyrests.
读者老爷们请放心跳过，与剧情无关(ω`)
作者的心里话，也是写这本书的初衷。
但是怕被审核挂，只能这样了（吸取63/68/97/99/120/137章的教训）。
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