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Comment by DeepSeaTortoise | Hacker News Reader

With Russia and China reaching out to each other after many decades of nearly no contact and Trump reaching out to Russia after about a decade, it might as well be a sign of the very opposite.

This might genuinely be the birth of a true unipolar world order.

No idea if that's good or bad...

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That is what current US administration hope, but it is a bluff from the russia at least.

They view US as weak now, and will not stop until it is collapses on itself.

With who in control? A Russia, China and US alliance? This seems very unlikely to me. All signs indicate we're moving to a multipolar world as far as I can tell.

China owns an increasing majority of global GDP and Trump seems to be either taking a path of peace, populism and or stupidity by pulling America out of its global alliances.

That’s one possibility; a different one is that Trump considers China as the real contender for the US in the 21st century, and wants to pivot the US attention there (and out of Europe.)

How does divorcing Europe make the US stronger against China?

I'm not a military strategist but if one believes that the real power competition in this century is going to be played between the US and China, it would make sense to concentrate on that direction. And if so, Europe becomes a distraction.

What if this drives the eu into the hands of China? How does that help the US versus china?

I don't think this is anywhere remotely likely.

The US performs a two-fold security function in Europe: first, it protects Europe from extra-European threats. Second, it protects Europe from intra-European threats. If however the US exits Europe, both kinds of threats become a reality overnight. When you think of what Europe is going to do if faced with any of these situations, it becomes very clear that China has absolutely nothing to offer on either front.

Ideally there would be a 20 year plan to drawdown in Europe and a replacement security architecture. I don't think there's currently any strategic vision, not that Biden had one either.

Agreed. Biden however saw Europe as allies; Trump sees them as "free-riders".

The extra European threat is not protected by the us anymore. And what even is an intra European threat? US is gonna intervene in a German - French war?

The idea that Trump’s brain is capable of producing original, substantive thoughts resembling long-term geopolitical strategies based in reality is adorable.

That's not a good-faith argument, sorry. Please be intellectually honest by attacking the strongest version of Trump you can imagine, not the weakest, brain-dead, reality-detached version of him that's easier for you to attack.

It's not necessarily his idea.

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