We've also lifted the veil on the myth that we were a unstoppable military power. We look silly saying, day after day, that the war is over, they're powerless, etc while the same channel shows that's not true.
The folks least impressed right now are China and Russia, who must surely see a new system of regional powers operating in their own spheres, not a single global power which is apparently a historical fiction.
The excellent book, Clash of Civilizations predicted this move to regional powers versus the 50's simple East/West divide, along with many other current events we see now. It was written 30 years ago.
The US is relatively weak without its allies. NATO was the real superpower in the west. The current regime got too big for their britches and tried to go it alone.
Excluding the US, all the other countries put together would be around 2 million active personnel. Of which Turkey is the largest at 300k.
Due to language issues, cultural issues, and political issues they're hardly likely to pull together, and especially now, with Trump and Vance openly insulting their NATO partners.
The only leverage NATO would be able to provide the US today would be political.
And don't forget that Russia via the Ukraine SMO has been systematically demilitarising the entirety of NATO over the last 4 years. The evidence for this is in the panicked pronouncements of the NATO vassal states like Germany. More recently Poland has refused to send their patriot systems to the Iran conflict.
> The folks least impressed right now are China and Russia
After a successful Venezuela op; the decapitation strike in Qom; and then this rescue mission: another possibility is that Moscow and Beijing are quietly reassessing just how belligerent they want to be ahead of installing another Biden-style meat puppet in DC.
Lots of Americans don't get it yet but what we're living through is the end of what was sometimes called the "post-war international order" that began in 1945. America's allies in western Europe have been deliberately alienated and our electorate has shown itself to be too volatile, unpredictable, and frankly dumb to elect a trustworthy government.
Intelligence-sharing from countries once, and still sort of nominally, our allies has been curtailed because no one can trust that information shared with us won't make its way to other countries that do not wish them well. That trust will take decades to rebuild if in fact it can be, and by that time, the world will be a very different place.
The current administration is in the grip of religious fanatics with delusional, apocalyptic views of the world, as is much of the political party they come from. Nobody sensible trusts people like that, nor should they. It will take a generation to remove these people from political power, and it's far from clear that a majority of the electorate even wants to.
Meanwhile, the US is gutting the science and education infrastructure that was rightly the envy of the world and making itself hostile to immigrants from nearly the entire world, when being a draw to the best and brightest served it so well for so long. Again, damage being done in a matter of years will take decades to recover from.
It's not time to pack it in but it is time to recognize that America does not now and will in all likelihood never again hold the place in the world it did from 1945 to 2017. The America that most adults alive now grew up in is gone and the one their children and grandchildren will inhabit will likely be much diminished.
Didn't have to happen but that's where we are and we brought it on ourselves.
The fact that the protagonist in this lament ever thought that the US was even once considered benevolent is risible.
That's the problem with USAian politicians and bureaucrats.
They have no education, no cultural knowledge, and lack the ability and the desire to understand the other side. They always act as if they don't have to OR project their own malicious intentions onto others.
We should give credit to Trump for ripping off the thin mask of US "diplomacy."
I think if the GOP looses big in 2026 to the point Trump can be impeached and removed from office and his minions are convicted for corruption, I think it will recover. I believe the world is waiting for Nov 2026 before making big changes.
If that does not happen, I would say the article is 100% true.
The problem is that even if the US elects some nice centrist democrats for the 14 years every country is going to be thinking "What if they elect Trump v2?"
I mean the US already re-elected him after the first time so it wasn't a one off. US allies are already increasing defense spending and diversifying supply chains (especially for weapons) away from the US.
Would you bet the safety of your country on the US being stable going forward?
> problem is that even if the US elects some nice centrist democrats for the 14 years every country is going to be thinking "What if they elect Trump v2?"
Nobody actually does this outside opinion pages. Like, Argentina has defaulted on its debt nine times. It still finds lenders. Similarly, an America that has stabilised its foreign policy still represents a military superpower and consumer dynamo that would be hard for any rational leader to pass up aligning with.
Counterpoint: Japan committed some war crimes back in the 40s, and almost a century later, a lot of East Asians still think maybe Japan shouldn't have a regular military that can project its power. And that includes a large portion of Japanese citizens themselves.
> Japan committed some war crimes back in the 40s, and almost a century later, a lot of East Asians still think maybe Japan shouldn't have a regular military that can project its power
I'd actually say that's a decent corollary versus counterpoint. The folks you attack will hate you. Regardless of whether you genuinely change. But we aren't directly attacking our allies right now. The folks who weren't directly war crimed by Japan, e.g. South Asia, have moved along just fine.
Maybe the attacks on allies aren't being done with bombs but the attacks are landing anyway and the hate is growing too.
It's not like America was super popular before all of this, it was more tolerated then celebrated. This very large straw broke the camel's back and everyone is working on moving away and after that's done, why come back?
Does the rest of the world really pay attention to internal political details like that? I can't imagine the average non-American thinking "well I know they have a legislative election this year that may impact Trump's ability to enact his agenda, I'll reserve judgement until then." I assume it's more like "America is dropping bombs for no reason and destroying the global economy, why are they doing that".
Even as an insider it's hard to understand how a country could re-elect the worst person on earth and then two years later vote the opposition into power, so it's hard to believe that outsiders are taking such a nuanced view.
> I think if the GOP looses big in 2026 to the point Trump can be impeached and removed from office and his minions are convicted for corruption, I think it will recover.
Assuming party-line voting on the issue with no defections from either party, that requires the Democrats to win 33 of the 35 Senate seats up for election (if they hold every one that they currently hold, it requires them to take 20 of the 22 Republican-held seats.)
> I believe the world is waiting for Nov 2026 before making big changes.
I don't think the world is waiting at all, it is just taking time to work out the shape of the big changes, whether its European defense integration to replace the historically-pivotal role of the US, or any of large number of other changes nations are actively and openly working on.
Now, if the present direction of the US changes, some of those efforts may be abandoned or deprioritized, but "could potentially stop work" is not the same thing as "waiting to start".
>Assuming party-line voting on the issue with no defections from either party, that requires the Democrats to win 33
I know, it is very unlikely this will happen. But I was just pointing out what I think needs to happen for the article to be wrong.
And someone in another comment brought up the military. A failing/fascist US with its military is something I really worry about for the world. I think Nov 2026 is the last chance the US has to change path.
Other countries have had very dark times and are not pretty well respected nations. US shouldn't be any different, but we're definitely being set back a lot, even more so if midterms don't result in anything meaningful.
So the story is... a publication that opposes the party currently in power, quoting a few people from the side that's presently out of power, saying that their being out of power is really bad, and we may never recover?
How is this different than the whining we get when the roles are reversed?
I realize you folks hate each other, but it would be nice if either of you could talk about something without turning it into a rant about how great, noble and good your side is and how awful the other side is.
To someone neutral (yeah, humor me), the Trump administration has done far more to demolish the reputation of the US than any other administration in my lifetime (OK, maybe Nixon - I don't remember all that much about him firsthand).
But I would also say that Biden, while not as bad as Trump, was worse than anybody since Nixon.
People often prioritize "reputation" over other things, as if it is politically actionable or tangible.
It's not, and it's a projection of peoples' personal feelings onto the actions of a nation-state.
Honestly, it's odd behavior. To identify with a nation-state so strongly to care about it's "reputation" over actual material measures. It's parasocial and indicitave of people treating politics as a consumer form of entertainment, and not something they engage in in their daily lives. As if you were a foreign diplomat, might be the only time "reputation" mattered in the way that people talk about it.
Internationally, reputation is, essentially, your country's track record projected forward in other nations' thinking. It's their expectation value for how you will behave in the future.
People prioritize reputation because that's pretty much all there is to go on. Treaties? Sure, but how likely is the country to keep the terms of it? Agreements? Same question. Place for investments? How good is the rule of law there, and how likely is that to continue? Those are reputation questions; that is, they are questions about future behavior as predicted by past behavior.
Admitting it can wain admits the concepts of waxing and waining, which admits the concept of waxing. It could rise again. it depends how bad the other choices become exploiting their new found international reputation.
Also, it was built on useful largesse. I think the beginning of the end to me (I am sure it predates this, but this is when I became more conscious of it) was when the funding of the UN dried up because militant american christianity hates women's reproductive rights. That was a massive flip in posture towards a rational approach to improved health in Africa and for what? For a short term domestic agenda. The UN systematic corruption and money laundering was a huge issue but what motivated the change wasn't "cleaning up the UN" it was putting contraception back in the box.
[edit: "this century" meaning "in the last 25 years" because during the Vietnam era, American reputation was pretty low worldwide. I keep forgetting we're in a new century. The war on sex was President-pro-tem Nancy Reagan era stuff.]
We've also lifted the veil on the myth that we were a unstoppable military power. We look silly saying, day after day, that the war is over, they're powerless, etc while the same channel shows that's not true.
The folks least impressed right now are China and Russia, who must surely see a new system of regional powers operating in their own spheres, not a single global power which is apparently a historical fiction.
The excellent book, Clash of Civilizations predicted this move to regional powers versus the 50's simple East/West divide, along with many other current events we see now. It was written 30 years ago.
The US is relatively weak without its allies. NATO was the real superpower in the west. The current regime got too big for their britches and tried to go it alone.
That hasn't been true for many years.
Excluding the US, all the other countries put together would be around 2 million active personnel. Of which Turkey is the largest at 300k.
Due to language issues, cultural issues, and political issues they're hardly likely to pull together, and especially now, with Trump and Vance openly insulting their NATO partners.
The only leverage NATO would be able to provide the US today would be political.
And don't forget that Russia via the Ukraine SMO has been systematically demilitarising the entirety of NATO over the last 4 years. The evidence for this is in the panicked pronouncements of the NATO vassal states like Germany. More recently Poland has refused to send their patriot systems to the Iran conflict.
> The folks least impressed right now are China and Russia
After a successful Venezuela op; the decapitation strike in Qom; and then this rescue mission: another possibility is that Moscow and Beijing are quietly reassessing just how belligerent they want to be ahead of installing another Biden-style meat puppet in DC.
FAFO USA - With Love, Canada
:)
Lots of Americans don't get it yet but what we're living through is the end of what was sometimes called the "post-war international order" that began in 1945. America's allies in western Europe have been deliberately alienated and our electorate has shown itself to be too volatile, unpredictable, and frankly dumb to elect a trustworthy government.
Intelligence-sharing from countries once, and still sort of nominally, our allies has been curtailed because no one can trust that information shared with us won't make its way to other countries that do not wish them well. That trust will take decades to rebuild if in fact it can be, and by that time, the world will be a very different place.
The current administration is in the grip of religious fanatics with delusional, apocalyptic views of the world, as is much of the political party they come from. Nobody sensible trusts people like that, nor should they. It will take a generation to remove these people from political power, and it's far from clear that a majority of the electorate even wants to.
Meanwhile, the US is gutting the science and education infrastructure that was rightly the envy of the world and making itself hostile to immigrants from nearly the entire world, when being a draw to the best and brightest served it so well for so long. Again, damage being done in a matter of years will take decades to recover from.
It's not time to pack it in but it is time to recognize that America does not now and will in all likelihood never again hold the place in the world it did from 1945 to 2017. The America that most adults alive now grew up in is gone and the one their children and grandchildren will inhabit will likely be much diminished.
Didn't have to happen but that's where we are and we brought it on ourselves.
The fact that the protagonist in this lament ever thought that the US was even once considered benevolent is risible.
That's the problem with USAian politicians and bureaucrats.
They have no education, no cultural knowledge, and lack the ability and the desire to understand the other side. They always act as if they don't have to OR project their own malicious intentions onto others.
We should give credit to Trump for ripping off the thin mask of US "diplomacy."
I think if the GOP looses big in 2026 to the point Trump can be impeached and removed from office and his minions are convicted for corruption, I think it will recover. I believe the world is waiting for Nov 2026 before making big changes.
If that does not happen, I would say the article is 100% true.
The problem is that even if the US elects some nice centrist democrats for the 14 years every country is going to be thinking "What if they elect Trump v2?"
I mean the US already re-elected him after the first time so it wasn't a one off. US allies are already increasing defense spending and diversifying supply chains (especially for weapons) away from the US.
Would you bet the safety of your country on the US being stable going forward?
> problem is that even if the US elects some nice centrist democrats for the 14 years every country is going to be thinking "What if they elect Trump v2?"
Nobody actually does this outside opinion pages. Like, Argentina has defaulted on its debt nine times. It still finds lenders. Similarly, an America that has stabilised its foreign policy still represents a military superpower and consumer dynamo that would be hard for any rational leader to pass up aligning with.
There is a difference between "aligning with" and "trusting with your life"
> There is a difference between "aligning with" and "trusting with your life"
Practically? In a germane context? I don't think that delineation exists in geopolitics.
Every U.S. ally under its nuclear umbrella trusts its life with D.C. Same with NATO and AUKUS and other defensive partnerships.
Counterpoint: Japan committed some war crimes back in the 40s, and almost a century later, a lot of East Asians still think maybe Japan shouldn't have a regular military that can project its power. And that includes a large portion of Japanese citizens themselves.
> Japan committed some war crimes back in the 40s, and almost a century later, a lot of East Asians still think maybe Japan shouldn't have a regular military that can project its power
I'd actually say that's a decent corollary versus counterpoint. The folks you attack will hate you. Regardless of whether you genuinely change. But we aren't directly attacking our allies right now. The folks who weren't directly war crimed by Japan, e.g. South Asia, have moved along just fine.
Maybe the attacks on allies aren't being done with bombs but the attacks are landing anyway and the hate is growing too.
It's not like America was super popular before all of this, it was more tolerated then celebrated. This very large straw broke the camel's back and everyone is working on moving away and after that's done, why come back?
America will be to military powers what Argentina is to economies is not exactly a bright prospect for the future.
Does the rest of the world really pay attention to internal political details like that? I can't imagine the average non-American thinking "well I know they have a legislative election this year that may impact Trump's ability to enact his agenda, I'll reserve judgement until then." I assume it's more like "America is dropping bombs for no reason and destroying the global economy, why are they doing that".
Even as an insider it's hard to understand how a country could re-elect the worst person on earth and then two years later vote the opposition into power, so it's hard to believe that outsiders are taking such a nuanced view.
Decision makers do pay attention to US internal affairs as it affects the rest of the world directly.
That goodwill was used up the first time. It will take at least a generation to recover from re-electing the criminal.
> I think if the GOP looses big in 2026 to the point Trump can be impeached and removed from office and his minions are convicted for corruption, I think it will recover.
Assuming party-line voting on the issue with no defections from either party, that requires the Democrats to win 33 of the 35 Senate seats up for election (if they hold every one that they currently hold, it requires them to take 20 of the 22 Republican-held seats.)
> I believe the world is waiting for Nov 2026 before making big changes.
I don't think the world is waiting at all, it is just taking time to work out the shape of the big changes, whether its European defense integration to replace the historically-pivotal role of the US, or any of large number of other changes nations are actively and openly working on.
Now, if the present direction of the US changes, some of those efforts may be abandoned or deprioritized, but "could potentially stop work" is not the same thing as "waiting to start".
>Assuming party-line voting on the issue with no defections from either party, that requires the Democrats to win 33
I know, it is very unlikely this will happen. But I was just pointing out what I think needs to happen for the article to be wrong.
And someone in another comment brought up the military. A failing/fascist US with its military is something I really worry about for the world. I think Nov 2026 is the last chance the US has to change path.
Other countries have had very dark times and are not pretty well respected nations. US shouldn't be any different, but we're definitely being set back a lot, even more so if midterms don't result in anything meaningful.
So the story is... a publication that opposes the party currently in power, quoting a few people from the side that's presently out of power, saying that their being out of power is really bad, and we may never recover?
How is this different than the whining we get when the roles are reversed?
I realize you folks hate each other, but it would be nice if either of you could talk about something without turning it into a rant about how great, noble and good your side is and how awful the other side is.
To someone neutral (yeah, humor me), the Trump administration has done far more to demolish the reputation of the US than any other administration in my lifetime (OK, maybe Nixon - I don't remember all that much about him firsthand).
But I would also say that Biden, while not as bad as Trump, was worse than anybody since Nixon.
People often prioritize "reputation" over other things, as if it is politically actionable or tangible. It's not, and it's a projection of peoples' personal feelings onto the actions of a nation-state. Honestly, it's odd behavior. To identify with a nation-state so strongly to care about it's "reputation" over actual material measures. It's parasocial and indicitave of people treating politics as a consumer form of entertainment, and not something they engage in in their daily lives. As if you were a foreign diplomat, might be the only time "reputation" mattered in the way that people talk about it.
Internationally, reputation is, essentially, your country's track record projected forward in other nations' thinking. It's their expectation value for how you will behave in the future.
People prioritize reputation because that's pretty much all there is to go on. Treaties? Sure, but how likely is the country to keep the terms of it? Agreements? Same question. Place for investments? How good is the rule of law there, and how likely is that to continue? Those are reputation questions; that is, they are questions about future behavior as predicted by past behavior.
Admitting it can wain admits the concepts of waxing and waining, which admits the concept of waxing. It could rise again. it depends how bad the other choices become exploiting their new found international reputation.
Also, it was built on useful largesse. I think the beginning of the end to me (I am sure it predates this, but this is when I became more conscious of it) was when the funding of the UN dried up because militant american christianity hates women's reproductive rights. That was a massive flip in posture towards a rational approach to improved health in Africa and for what? For a short term domestic agenda. The UN systematic corruption and money laundering was a huge issue but what motivated the change wasn't "cleaning up the UN" it was putting contraception back in the box.
[edit: "this century" meaning "in the last 25 years" because during the Vietnam era, American reputation was pretty low worldwide. I keep forgetting we're in a new century. The war on sex was President-pro-tem Nancy Reagan era stuff.]