7 ms·
Largely the US isn't losing control, it's giving it up willingly. For what reason, no one knows yet.
by mrweasel 10mo ago
Largely the US isn't losing control, it's giving it up willingly. For what reason, no one knows yet.
- 3D30497420 10mo agoI came to the comments to say exactly this. I think the reason is a combination of incompetence, ignorance, and greed.
- pfdietz 10mo agoIt's because it's not worth the expense. Vanity is a hell of a drug, but it has its limits.
- squidbeak 10mo agoA large part of the lifestyle Americans enjoy is owed to its control of the world.
- pfdietz 10mo agoHow is that? Are we taking stuff at the point of a gun? The benefits would seem to flow to those countries that would have been swallowed up without Pax Americana.
- danmaz74 10mo ago> How is that? Are we taking stuff at the point of a gun? No, but the USA is getting a lot of stuff in exchange for $$ which it can print for basically free. Consumers in the USA have benefitted a lot from this, which partly compensated the fact that more and more of the pie is going to the richest instead of the average American.
- pfdietz 10mo agoDollar holdings outside the US come to about $1 trillion. What you are talking about there are holdings of debt. Yes, US prosperity has been propped up by borrowing increasing amounts of money. This is not sustainable. One can view Trump's tariff actions as preparatory for US debt default. This would crash the dollar and make imports much more expensive.
- mattmaroon 10mo agoIt’s not that it’s not worth the expense, it’s that we’re unable to continue funding global peace and prosperity ourselves. And we shouldn’t have to. I don’t agree with Trump about much but he’s correct that the other liberal democracies have been more than happy to have us foot the bill for keeping the wolves at bay while looking down on us for doing it.
- pfdietz 10mo ago> It’s not that it’s not worth the expense, it’s that we’re unable to continue funding global peace and prosperity ourselves. And we shouldn’t have to. That's just explaining why it's not worth the expense.
- mattmaroon 10mo agoWell, it’s worth it, we just can’t.
- justin66 10mo agoYou've done the arithmetic on that, have you?
- mattmaroon 10mo agoOur national debt is $38 trillion, no arithmetic needed.
- justin66 10mo agoThe reason what you're doing here - pointing to the national debt as a reason not to spend on a particular thing - is so fallacious is twofold: 1. There is always a national debt 2. There are always things we spend money on, nevertheless What this fallacy avoids is the necessary question of prioritization. Some things we'd like to spend money on are more important than others. In truth, there's always money for any given thing. There's never money for everything we might desire to spend money on. "Well, it’s worth it, we just can’t" is just nonsensical. It's either worth it or not, and making that decision requires some work. It's a fallacy that's used by politicians all over the political spectrum, and it's highly useful for them. "We cannot possibly afford that thing you are asking for" is a lot less alienating to voters than "it's either that thing you are asking for, or this thing my donors have demanded."
- zelphirkalt 10mo agoThey'll only realize what they lost, when they lost it. When their influence all over the world crumbles away, because of disrespectful treatment of other nations, and negligence in maintaining good relations. The bad awakening comes, when most of the good relations are gone, and the people feel consequences domestically.
- pfdietz 10mo agoThis sounds like vanity again. Oh noez, others think less of me.
- lloda 10mo agoThe US military budget hasn't been reduced and the adventurism is going on as strong as ever, so that doesn't seem to be the reason.
- Molitor5901 10mo agoI think the US is giving up control willingly and turning more isolationist. It has been building for some time but I do not thing it is forced. It is a deliberate policy shift turning away from trying to control and police the world. America is pushed in and on to other countries and societies that a retraction might be the best thing
- piva00 10mo agoI don't believe it's trying to give up control, the current US administration don't want to be the world police but still wants the control given by being the world police, both can't exist at the same time and some sort of reckoning will happen.
- pjc50 10mo agoThey're currently threatening to invade Venezuela! Mind you, another consequence of the regime is that nobody knows what's real and what's keyfabe any more. They were also threatening to invade Canada, lost a colossal amount of goodwill as a result, and got bored and moved on.
- QuadmasterXLII 10mo agoThe US is currently starting a war with Venezuela. You are ascribing coherence and deliberateness where I don’t see evidence for its presence.
- giardini 10mo agoThe US is pulling back from NATO and simultaneously re-asserting dominance in the Americas, i.e., the Munroe Doctrine, which has suffered setbacks in recent decades.
- mmh0000 10mo agoYou gotta look into the Venezuela thing further. It's more geopolitical, specifically about reducing Chinese influence in South America. Now, whether that's needed or whether the US is handling it in a "good way" is all up for debate. But there is a deliberateness. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Venezuela_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Venezuela_relati... * https://thediplomat.com/2024/08/china-breaks-with-latin-america-and-brics-allies-over-venezuela-election-fraud/ https://thediplomat.com/2024/08/china-breaks-with-latin-amer... * https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3335116/china-unlikely-aid-maduro-if-us-acts-could-benefit-fallout-analysts https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3335116/china-unlike...
- thrance 10mo agoTrump's project is to turn the US into a playground for oligarchs such as himself, like in Putin's Russia. It doesn't matter if the US becomes way poorer and weaker in the process. "Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven".
- tgv 10mo agoThiel and Musk want to decentralize as much as possible, and split everything into small autonomies, so they can pit different jurisdictions against each other, and pressure/manipulate them. That's fairly sure. The goal has never been revealed, but one can assume it is not because it hurts their interests.
- fidotron 10mo agoThe Europeans want it both ways: they want the US to pay for and be responsible for policing the world, but to do it the way the Europeans want with them free to criticize the US and act morally superior the whole time. This act has become utterly tiresome.
- alchemist1e9 10mo agoNot only that, which I agree with, but also consider the US demographics are extremely advantageous over other nations. There is a chance the US isn’t losing control but is pulling away because the rest of the world has increasingly less to offer it. The US is energy and food independent and with increased automation is on a path to industrial independence. As a small example, Chinese had thought they had the US on hook with rare earths, well it’s starting to look now like that threat led to Americans looking around for them and then discovering, oh wait, we do have them, let’s go dig them out, and in 5 years it’s possible the US will be rare earth independent. What happens when the US is increasingly independent and isolationist? do you really think that will be a problem for it? or instead a problem for others?
- pjc50 10mo ago> want the US to pay for and be responsible for policing the world Not really convinced that it's that way round, that Europe actually wants much of this "policing" to be done at all rather than being dragged into it. Until Ukraine, which is the exact bit of world policing that Republicans no longer recognize as crime.
- seydor 10mo agothose things are usually hard to discriminate
- tmountain 10mo agoThe America First agenda is predicated by isolationism. You have a demagogue with whom nobody is willing to say "no" and an army of self serving sycophants lined up to try and win favors. The political messaging is all built around zero sum language and arguments, and toughness is demonstrated by punitive measures taken against any allies deemed "weaker" than the U.S. (basically everyone). Those who know where this will lead are unwilling to speak up and the rest follow. Everyone involved seems to be in it for short-term transactional benefits, and nobody seems to acknowledge or care about what the long term outcomes will be for the country.
- lotsofpulp 10mo ago> Those who know where this will lead are unwilling to speak up and the rest follow. They did speak up. And they lost the popular vote. Democracy is only as good as its voters. A country is only as good as its people. Replace good with productive/sane/not corrupt, etc.
- OgsyedIE 10mo agoNot only did they lose the popular vote, they lost it repeatedly. Although it was only a matter of degree at each step, Clinton was more isolationist than Bush and Dole. Bush was more isolationist than Gore and Kerry. Obama was more isolationist than McCain and Romney. Trump was more isolationist than Clinton, Biden was more isolationist than first-term Trump and Trump beat Biden last year partially on the basis of becoming much more isolationist than his first term version, surpassing Biden.
- Hendrikto 10mo agoIf you do not get votes, it’s not the voters who failed, it is you. If politicians got that through their heads, and started trying to convince voters on their own merit, instead of simply trash-talking their opponents and telling people they voted “wrong”, they would start to get things done again, and we could actually solve real problems.
- 5upplied_demand 10mo ago
- next_xibalba 10mo agoYou cannot separate monstrously expensive calamities like Vietnam or Iraq from the military-industry complex that is the foundation for the U.S.’s role as the defender of the west. So many thousands of lives lost or ruined, trillions spent. To say nothing of the millions of foreign civilians killed and maimed. The American people are sick to death of it. Some politicians smartly harnessed that sentiment.
- watwut 10mo ago> The American people are sick to death of it. Some politicians smartly harnessed that sentiment. Except that MAGA cheers on new wars. They prefer "ministry of the war", they like the threats to annex Canada and Greenland. They enjoy fishermen boats being destroyed and want to bomb Venezuela. This is not about distaste toward foreign wars. This is about wanting more of them, wanting more torture and wanting more violence. This is about wanting to feel and appear more manly and getting there via more violence.
- derelicta 10mo agoI mean its hand has been forced. That's good imo, maybe my country will be able to regain its sovereignty after all.
- rayiner 10mo agoWhy should we control the world? It’s very expensive running an empire, and all it has accomplished is getting people around the world to hate us. Do you know how much people in my home country hate Reagan and Nixon (who opposed our independence because of some stupid alliance with Pakistan against Russia)? Much more than they hate Trump.
- Ekaros 10mo agoFrom outside massive wealth extraction and exploitation of less powerful countries. Worked long enough, but cracks are starting to appear.
- rayiner 10mo agoI think folks in my home country could at least understand wealth extraction. But what wealth has America extracted from Bangladesh, Vietnam, Iraq, etc? The Chinese got the oil contracts in Iraq. What’s insane about America’s foreign policy is that it costs huge amounts of money, pisses off most of the third world, and doesn’t even seem to result in any flow of wealth to the U.S.
- apawloski 10mo agoI remember you trying to defend the tariff policies as a defense against China. Do you still honestly perceive China as a threat to American power and livelihood? If so, how do you square this stance of conceding global power to China at the same time? At the very least, surely you can see the importance of global supply chains to American manufacturing that you want to protect? I'm asking these questions specifically based on your arguments in the past. I don't understand how you can believe America can thrive in a world without allies and trade partners.
- rayiner 10mo agoI believe in the pre-World War I Republican policies that led to a highly developed industrial economy with few commitments to international security. We are at risk from China because we outsourced our industrial capacity to China. The U.S. used its industrial capacity to build the largest air force and navy in the world overnight when it entered World War II. Today, China is the country that has that capacity.
- aatd86 10mo agoI'd posit that it is trying to wrestle it back actually. It lost it when their industries went abroad. From a global perspective this is good because it makes peace more sustainable if the world is interlinked and interconnected. National interests being distributed all over. Alignment of incentives. The issue is that it is not without friction. People's interests don't align so flawlessly. The knee-jerk reaction is protectionism but it is too late. The other parts of the world have caught up. And that is normal and sound. It rebalances the world. It is a new equilibrium. This is just the natural way for most closed systems where there is a gradient. What is weird is that it is almost like watching a movie. Meaning that the current technological push into AI, energy and robotics is likely to spearhead us into a whole new kind of economics (post-money/post-work kind of). And probably requires to open the system (find new territory beyond the existing). The point is that it will probably offset the current protectionist trend. Wondering how AI will affect governance...
- kstenerud 10mo agoAmerica is, and always has been, an isolationist nation - behaving like an island nation even though it's not an island (although it might as well be, given it has only two neighbors of little consequence). It was dragged into the first world war (despite strong public aversion) because J.P. Morgan Jr started lending money to Britain and France to buy American steel, thus setting in motion a cycle of investment and production protection that eventually required boots on the ground. It was dragged into the second world war by Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor (and Germany's subsequent declaration of war, as it was obligated to do under its treaty with Japan). It protected Europe and SE Asia in the post-war years in order to contain communism, which it feared more than anything else. Once that threat subsided, there wasn't much reason for it to continue with its overseas footprint other than inertia and protecting important trade routes. Gulf Wars I was to protect oil prices (and because they already had the equipment for war), and Gulf Wars II was to be seen to be doing something about 9/11. Now that Trump is in power, America is performing its "great reset" (which was going to come eventually), where it becomes isolationist again, sticking to the Americas (reinvigorating the Monroe Doctrine), and leaving everyone else to their own devices.
- gradus_ad 10mo agoThe "world", implicit in your comment, is the liberal world order. This world order worked for America (ie Americans) until it became apparent that it did not, at least in a political and cultural sense (in a material sense it is of course still working perhaps even too well). The greatest champion of this world order, the EU bureaucratic class, views Americans' play for their sovereignty with bewilderment and casts it as renouncing its leadership in the world, yet leadership is not just blindly following a path to ruin but instead forging ahead down new and promising paths. In this sense the US is indeed still "leading" and it is the EU that stands firm in its intransigence and refuses to follow the leader. Yet it need not be this way and the EU very well could follow the US away from the excesses of hegemonic liberalism. There are signs of change in the air. This is politically interesting and the eventual outcome is not at all clear. On the other hand, the emergence of China, India, and to a lesser extent Russia (as a puppet of the Chinese) upon the world stage as independent actors, out of the shadows of Western domination, is another way in which the US is "losing control" but this is much less politically interesting in the sense that it was an inevitable and expected outcome. There is nothing the US has done, is doing or could do that would diminish non-Western ambition and agitation for power.
- pjc50 10mo agoHegemonic liberalism is way, way, better than hegemonic illiberalism.
- gradus_ad 10mo agoHegemonic idealism is dangerous either way. We can pick and choose what works best.
- jswelker 10mo agoYes "we" can, but the difference is that in a liberal order "we" at least ostensibly represents the people, and in an illiberal order, "we" represents a naked power grab by whichever elite group currently has the reigns.
- aa-jv 10mo agoIsrael is rising to fill the void, and there are many indications that this is by design, all along...
- pjc50 10mo agoI think that's overestimating their influence and, crucially, their size. The country barely has a navy and is dependent on oil imports.
- taneliv 10mo agoHasn't this been the Russian agenda for decades? I don't think it's a secret, or a fringe theory. They have worked on it long term, and seemingly finding success now. I don't think China is against this change, but their agenda seems to be more focused on international trade and internal growth, rather than specific strategy against the US. The EU is definitely not benefiting from it in the short term. While some argue it needs this change in the long term, it is difficult to imagine that the EU wants it to happen so arbitrarily and quickly. Those holding any meaningful power in the US are either benefiting from this change, at least in the short term or personally, or oblivious to it, possibly also due to influence from the agents of change. It's an opportunity for other states to gain influence. And in particular for Russia to advance their geopolitical ambitions, since this is from their playbook. It would be in the interests of the United States to alter the course, and regain the influence already lost. The leaders seem to have chosen to ignore her interests, though.