It’s becoming clearer and clearer that we’re looking at a seismic shift in the US’s relationship with the world, between:
- The US dismantling its foreign interference apparatuses (like USAID 👇)
- Marco Rubio stating that we’re now in a multipolar world with “multi-great powers in different parts of the planet” and that “the postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us”
- The tariffs on supposed “allies” like Mexico, Canada or the EU
This is the US effectively saying “our attempt at running the world is over, to each his own, we’re now just another great power, not the ‘indispensable nation’.”
It looks “dumb” (as the WSJ just wrote) if you are still mentally in the old paradigm but it’s always a mistake to think that what the US (or any country) does is dumb.
Hegemony was going to end sooner or later, and now the U.S. is basically choosing to end it on its own terms. It is the post-American world order - brought to you by America itself.
Even the tariffs on allies, viewed under this angle, make sense, as it redefines the concept of “allies”: they don’t want - or maybe rather can’t afford - vassals anymore, but rather relationships that evolve based on current interests.
You can either view it as decline - because it does unquestionably look like the end of the American empire - or as avoiding further decline: controlled withdrawal from imperial commitments in order to focus resources on core national interests rather than being forced into an even messier retreat at a later stage.
In any case it is the end of an era and, while the Trump administration looks like chaos to many observers, they’re probably much more attuned to the changing realities of the world and their own country’s predicament than their predecessors. Acknowledging the existence of a multipolar world and choosing to operate within it rather than trying to maintain an increasingly costly global hegemony couldn’t be delayed much further. It looks messy but it is probably better than maintaining the fiction of American primacy until it eventually collapses under its own weight.
This is not to say that the U.S. won’t continue to wreak havoc on the world, and in fact we might be seeing it become even more aggressive than before. Because when it previously was (badly, and very hypocritically) trying to maintain some semblance of self-proclaimed “rules-based order”, it now doesn’t even have to pretend it is under any constraint, not even the constraint of playing nice with allies. It’s the end of the U.S. empire, but definitely not the end of the U.S. as a major disruptive force in world affairs.
All in all this transformation may mark one of the most significant shifts in international relations since the fall of the Soviet Union. And those most unprepared for it, as is already painfully obvious, are America’s vassals caught completely flat-footed by the realization that the patron they’ve relied on for decades is now treating them as just another set of countries to negotiate with.
Idk how I feel about this. Personally I think there’s a lot that has happened that seems to contradict this. Trump is expressing real expansionist ideas - his idea of Canada as a “51st state,” which as far as I can tell seems to be the only reason he’s enacted these tariffs on them, some attempt to use economic force to get them to accede to unification, and these attempts to buy Greenland. He seems to want to exert more influence over Latin America, this whole Panama Canal thing, the rhetoric which seems to foreshadow an invasion of Mexico. You also have Elon getting involved in German and UK politics - the afd thing and the “grooming gang” thing, seemingly an attempt to bring the far right to power there. And we know Elon has always has his eyes on Bolivia due to lithium, probably also the reason why there’s such focus on Greenland.
So tbh it doesn’t seem to me at least like there’s been a whole lot of pulling back. I don’t think USAID has been dismantled as this guy says, it’s just being taken over by Elon, I think there are plans to put it under the state dept. The foreign assistance pause is temporary but it’s not ended - I think a lot of these things are going through Trump era restructuring for whatever reason. Even the who thing, there’s been a whole to do about leaving WHO but when trump was signing the eo he (and I forget the quote) is open to rejoining the who under a better deal or whatever. And the whole eo, he’s mad about the influence China has in the organization. Prettt much, he wants greater dominance over the organization and I think leaving the who and pulling funding/collaboration is an attempt to force the who to accede to his demands. The WHO has already had to pull back capacity due to this.
Even the Rubio thing, yeah he’s saying we’re in a multipolar world now or whatever, but really he’s expressing a need to reassert American dominance in global politics. Sure he’s talking about diplomacy, but it seems to be a gesture towards realpolitik than any sort of pulling back as this guy is characterizing it. Rubio seems to have simultaneously drank the kool aid and believes the liberal lie that USAID and stuff are selfless humanitarian missions that he wants to pull back from, while also recognizing the decline of American hegemony and expressing a need to reassert “American interests.”
It’s like trumps first term when he pulled out of the tpp and the Iran nuclear deal. This was called isolationism, just as he’s referred to as an isolationist now, but it didn’t come with any real pulling back and instead trump ramped up tensions with both China and Iran for 4 years, not recognizing that both the tpp and jcpoa were tools to contain both countries.
Anyway a lot of disorganized thoughts, hopefully someone got something out of that or maybe I’m just straight up wrong