It doesn't matter. No other power is willing to lend out their military power to project influence overseas. Until that changes, the bread and circus of the med

It doesn't matter. No other power is willing to lend out their military power to project influence overseas. Until that changes, the bread and circus of the media are just that, navelgazing. Popular opinion only goes so far when it comes to foreign policy and the Great Game cares only for the side that wins, not for having the right or wrong ideology. Take a random middle east/African country, if a civil war breaks out tomorrow, how many countries do you think are willing to singlehandedly commit troops to turn the tide for their favored party? Aside from the French and the Russians, most other countries are happy to send only supplies, not actual boots on the ground. No amount of free infrastructure and bribes can replace actual hard power. The Brics countries are nominally non-aligned and none of the global south is willing to stick their necks out for each other when things get hot. Alternate supply routes and logistics/currencies are only useful if they can be defended. There is no replacement for the US military as an instrument of global force projection. The allegedly great militaries of China and India spend all their time at home and the only border "conflicts" they participate in involves literal sticks and stones in the Himalayans. Those two make up more than a quarter of the human civilization and their military activity in terms of foreign adventure is terribly underwhelming. You are not a superpower if your hard power is only on paper.