what the article really misses is why this is happening, and it boils down to 3 things: soft power, hard power, and ideal. The decline of soft power was a dire

what the article really misses is why this is happening, and it boils down to 3 things: soft power, hard power, and ideal. The decline of soft power was a direct consequence of Washington moving from a pragmatic good-faith actor to a rhetorical dogmatic broken record. nations increasingly couldnt count on washington to meet them on common ground in a disagreement, and instead saw lawmakers ritualistically park the USS blow-you-up carrier off their coast as a crass enforcement of their capitulation. equally onerous was the famed US economic sanction which showed up unannounced for everything from poorly structured oil sales to overly socialist domestic policy. Countries instead bolstered their anti-ship defenses and turned to alternative markets, leaving Washington hollow. The number of countries we currently sanction yet depend on for financing our debt is practically a boys club nodding halfheartedly to US fist-shaking, and the prospect of parking a carrier outside any country worth the dosh is really only enticing if you expect it to patrol the ocean floor a half hour after its arrival. Hard power is similar. The soviet union was only ever 5-6 years behind the US at best, and so long as you understand your adversary then its pretty easy to counter them. Russia has fifty years of tailor-made doomsday arsenal specifically purposed for deterring the US, which it openly shares with most nations that find themselves in the crosshairs of the stars and bars. similarly, the US hasnt won any of the foreign excursions its found itself since perhaps the first gulf war. Afghanistan was a black eye, Iraq was a road map to a sectarian holocaust, and the combination of low morale and low recruitment has made the US an almost ghostly figure of what it was in the seventies. perhaps the most damning coffin nail here however is that virtually no one in leadership at any level will admit outright that recent wars failed, or that any lessons could be learned. rounding third base into home we have ideal; its a little intangible at first. The US is a first world nation that struggles with food insecurity, homelessness, healthcare, and a living wage. it holds the worlds highest prison population, routinely shuffles past the weekly gun crime atrocity, and rarely holds its lawbringers to account. you'd move here, but only if it were your last option as housing is unaffordable at any level. Traffic in major cities is unbearable yet somehow no new works projects can ever commence as the might of singular senators gridlocked in endless partisan debate can be enough to torpedo funding entirely. The iris of government seems hopelessly fixed on a forty year old culture war as the doddering gerontocracy we call a legislature tables such groundbreaking resolution as to affirm 'in god we trust' on the dollar, or advance a ban on critical race theory.