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Comment by primitivesuave | Hacker News Reader

Completely agree. The modern equivalent of the Berlin Wall has already gone up (i.e. sanctions and divestment) and will stay up for at least one generation.

However, Americans underestimate how much our own influence is shrinking. I traveled to many countries in the last two years, and found that most people associate America with its most extreme ideologies (QAnon, gender theory, Trump policies, etc). The Russian bloc of the upcoming Cold War v2 will likely coalesce around the notion that America/Europe has no right to dictate global policy.

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The Russian/Chinese bloc has already coalesced around this policy. Unfortunately, both countries have done a pretty good job of terrifying their (non-vassal) neighbors, so it's unlikely that they'll be able to do much with it.

America has also done a pretty good job of terrifying other countries in the past century. The most destructive phase of this conflict will probably happen after the Russia-Ukraine war is over, as these two groups conduct proxy wars in unstable regions by supplying weapons to their respective factions.

> The Russian bloc of the upcoming Cold War v2 will likely coalesce around the notion that America/Europe has no right to dictate global policy.

Hasn't that been their position since the first cold war?

It’s remarkable how much of Kennan’s “long telegram” can be lifted and applied, with only cosmetic changes, from a Soviet Communist Russia led by Stalin, to a nationalist right-wing Russia led by Putin. It’s not simply “America and Europe have no right to dictate global policy,” it’s “Russia has the sovereign right to control the countries in its putative sphere of influence.” One can meaningfully argue as to whether the Western “rules-based order” is facially neutral, but it’s certainly the case that Russia’s smaller neighbors prefer it to living under diktat from the Kremlin.

Yes and it's not like the rest of the world has been in love with USA imperialism since WWII either.

America tends to show its problems out in the open unlike other powers. Other powers have much worse problems, such as a shrinking/aging population, lack of economic prospects or resources.

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