From that perspective, the current "emperor is naked" development might be positive in the sense that Europe can relatively soon have enough military power to be taken seriously, and at the same time become impossible to drag into an offensive war because none of its countries wants any war and we only went there because US pressured us into - but now that the USA has became unreliable, there's no reason to sacrifice oneself.
They are adults now (rare commodity), but can still be pushed around, have their leash yanked.
They have to come to terms with their islands of racist tendencies.
My hope hasn't died yet
The brutality of the School of Americas might indicate otherwise.
Now rebranded as
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f...
There has always been a meddlesome quality to the USA that the rest of the so called developed world turned a blind eye to. Along the lines of 'their bastards, but at least they're our bastards'. Of course that does not make it good, but the balance calculation worked out in favor of toeing the line and being careful not to get pulled out of joint too much. 9/11 changed all that and effectively Bin Laden forced the USA to lower its mask for long enough that the world could no longer ignore the bad sides of Uncle Sam. Even that would have not been enough to seal it, but Trump has managed to accomplish this in record time.
What I find more troubling is that Trump has popular support. It's just not Trump. The rot goes far deeper.
What Trump has is oligarch support - an unholy alliance of weird and cranky tech billionaires, old(ish) money, foreign money, media owners, and insane white supremacist patriarch-wannabes, some of whom operate through think tanks, some through megachurches.
The media are doing an excellent job of normalising this, not least - but not only - sanewashing Trump's obvious mental and physical decay.
I will however grant you that my sampling is no where close to uniform.
Bay of Pigs, regime changes all over including Iran, South Asia wars, Afghanistan (not the recent one, the one in the 80s), all the cold war stuff, etc etc.
PR spin aside, it was largely a force for global stability (a few notable and disastrous military quagmires aside). "Free trade" isn't much of a philosophy to hang your hat on but it is an ideal of sorts, and it allowed a more connected world.
Now? Brazen corruption, kleptocracy, hostility towards allies...
It's certainly fair to say the US never lived up to the ideals it espoused, but now it's not even espousing those ideals and seems to actively be working against them.
Then the comment repeats the same PR spin.
How many of them have a wealthy hegemon and wealthy minor partners?
It's <<extremely>> rare for that to happen and the US managed that for about 80 years.
Ignore all the propaganda and look at the results. Actions, not words.
In the modern era there are basically 0 wealthy Russian (similar story for the Soviets) or Chinese allies.
The Persian Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE).
Israel also wasn't developed in 1947.
Let's not ignore facts when they're inconvenient.
In the Western Hemisphere the US track record has been a total mess but in the Eastern Hemisphere I'd say about 30% of the time US allies tripped on their own feet on the way to prosperity.
Yeah I remember elementary school too. Where people don't care if one of the kids is an a*hole because "he's nice to me".
Now the rug pull... you've been operating this way for the last 50 years, and suddenly the US is out to extract as much from you as possible no matter how close an ally you are or how friendly to their corporations you are.
I'm tired of the both-sidesing that I see on places like HN to justify the current administration's actions. The US historically didn't shake every country down (even allies!) under the implicit threat of its military might, because global stability and prosperity was good for US business interests.
It did try to overturn unfriendly regimes but it was far less brazen and reckless about this, operating over longer timelines, and the instability caused by those disastrous interventions seemed like it was a lesson learned (but now has clearly been forgotten).
This shit is terrifying.
So strong is the instinct to pay tribute to the nice hegemon of the previous election.
Absolutely. Credit needs to be given where it's due.
Soft power? Have you been sleeping during the 20th century? The formidable military power of the US comes from a constant state of war.
For me, Dan Carlin said it perfectly - I want the America from the promotional material.
Where is Guthrie's guitar ?