Banno
8.9k
The Unraveling of America
Apocryphal has it that there is an ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.
The United States is no longer a leader among nations.
Is there something - anything - positive in this? — Banno
I say everything is well as long as the dollar has it's status and Americans can create money that others will take. — ssu
Banno
8.9k
↪Frank Apisa Not a bad question. Either. — Banno
I knew there were people throughout the world who saw only "the ugly American." — Frank Apisa
So... what makes something an ability. Competence is basic coherence. Why is it an ability of any use if everyone can do it. That makes someone elite- in a way. So you want, and I'm going to hope you're from whatever country we're talking about and not acting under the auspices of another, the most qualified and crucial positions such as medicine, defense, technology, science, education, etc... to be replaced with just anyone who knows how to get dressed in the morning? Erm... yeah that's a big no. lol
Typical cynical selfish boomer psychology! :-) — Hippyhead
This myth of foreign people hating Americans is what Americans sustain themselves. Of course those people who "hate" the US are called leftists, while other called conservatives don't have much if any problem with the US. Something along the lines you are now seeing in your own country btw.Yes, anyone that we've saved from ruthless tyranny typically thanks us by calling us ugly. :-) I think we're pretty good sports about that, all in all. — Hippyhead
Here's the bigger picture of the role of the US in World Economy:s. The US GDP is on par with the entirety of Europe, forget individual countries. They are still a geopolitical juggernaut with allies across the world and this doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. — Judaka
Well, that aid isn't as with other countries a huge share of it is military assistance, which basically means assisting the military-industrial complex. So here's where that aid went few years ago. Nearly trillion to Ethiopia is quite notable:The GDP of the US keeps increasing, which means a more powerful military, more money for aid and so on. — Judaka
And the role of the dollar. Never underestimate the role of the dollar. It can be difficult to understand just how important something like earlier (and even now) buying oil with your own currency that you a can print is. Or that vasts amounts of dollars are used between foreign countries that don't involve the US. It is something that Americans dismisses quite often and just take as a given, not something that actually happened because of WW2.US leadership isn't based on its paragon status, it's based on economic, geopolitical and military might, which it still has. — Judaka
Over the past few centuries, changes in the international order have often been the result of a great war. Examples include the Westphalian System which followed Europe’s Thirty-Year War, the Versailles-Washington system which followed WWI, and the Yalta system which followed WWII. The basic outline of the current international order is more or less the result of WWII. But after more than 70 years, the existing order is beginning to waver as a result of multiple shocks, beginning with the end of the Cold War in 1991, and including the 9-11 incident in 2001, the financial crisis in 2008, and Trump’s election in 2016.
While its structure remains intact, the role of the United Nations is limited, the capacity of the WTO has been diminished, the resources of the IMF and the World Bank are stretched thin, the authority of the WHO is inadequate, the global arms control regime is on the verge of collapse, international standards are frequently ignored, American leadership and will have declined together, the mechanisms facilitating great power cooperation are in disorder, and the international order is hanging by a thread.
The outbreak and spread of the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the entire world into mourning, as countries locked down and borders closed, economies ground to a halt, stock markets plunged, oil prices collapsed, exchanges were broken off, insults were traded and rumors proliferated. The shock of the impact has been in no way less than a World War, which is yet another attack on the existing international order. The old order is perhaps unsustainable, but a new order has yet to be built, which is the basic feature of a once-in-a-century great change, and is also the root cause of the crisis roiling the contemporary international scene
[...]
The 2020 election will be a fight between Trump’s “keeping America great” and Biden’s “let America lead again,” but even if Biden wins, internal political handicaps and changes in the external environment suggest that America will have a hard time reassuming its role as a world leader. But just like Britain in the post-WWI period, the United States still has enough power to prevent other countries from taking her place, and America’s China policy will only get increasingly hyper-sensitive, unyielding, and arrogant as they double down on containment and suppression. Strategic competition between China and the US will become all the more fierce.
At the end of the pandemic, the existing order of “one superpower and many great powers” will change. America may remain “the superpower” but will have a hard time maintaining its hegemonic domination. China is rising fast, but faces obstacles in its drive to surpass the US. Europe’s star is fading, its future development course unclear. Russia plots its future moves in the chaos, and its position has perhaps risen somewhat. India’s weaknesses and shortcomings have been exposed, blunting the momentum of its rise. After having to postpone the Tokyo Olympics, Japan seems lost.
[...]
Since the 18th National Congress of the CCP [in November 2012], China has chosen cooperation and a win-win posture as its ideological foundation, and peaceful development as its strategic priority. It has adopted One Belt-One Road as its primary policy stance, and the construction of a new type of international relations as its immediate objective. Its ultimate goal is the creation of a community of mankind’s shared destiny, through the “five in one” general framework[10] and the “close links between peoples of the world 环环相扣,” forming a set of new international strategic frameworks that both respect the past and innovate for the future, so that the relationship between China and the world enters a new historical phase.
Yet just as China increases its participation in the world, just as China assumes world leadership, America chooses “strategic contraction” and “America first,” and the trend in Sino-American relations, which is going against the trend of development in relations throughout the world, will earn the contempt of history. The result is that the United States is not looking at China’s relations with the world from a progressive historical perspective, but instead is scrutinizing Chinese intentions through a lens of strategic caution, and using high-pressure tactics to carry out blockage and containment.
[...]
The coronavirus pandemic has not changed the fact that the world is experiencing a once-in-a-century change, but has simply made that change a bit quicker and a bit more abrupt. It has not changed the basic shape of China’s relations with the world, but instead has made these relations more complex and multi-faceted. Nor has it changed the basic judgment that China is currently in a period of strategic opportunities, a posture that will continue. After all, China led the way out of the most difficult moment of the pandemic, and began planning to return to work and production; marked by the convening of the "Two Sessions,"[12] the strategic deployment China established is still proceeding in an orderly manner.
However, it will become increasingly difficult for China to seize the opportunity, and the risk challenge will surely multiply. In this extraordinary moment when countries face the disaster of the pandemic and the entire world fights the virus, the crux of the issue is whether China be able manage its own affairs well at the same time that it assumes it role as a great power and does its utmost to supply public health goods to the world. This is both a prerequisite for restarting China’s relationship with the world as well as the foundation for the great revival of the Chinese nation.
To ensure that the restart will proceed smoothly and extend into the future, we must begin by looking back on the path we have travelled, and must unwaveringly push forward the new age of reform and opening. On this front, we must bravely advance, and cannot be satisfied with half-measures. Next, we must settle our minds and proceed calmly with the task at hand. As the goal of the “first one hundred years” approaches conclusion, we should pause for a moment, sum up our experiences and lessons learned, and look for laws and patterns that will create the conditions as we take up the sprint toward the “second hundred years.”
— Yuan Peng
The fact that America is seen on the world's stage the way it is today...breaks my heart. — Frank Apisa
So nothing stops the US curling up within the comfort of its own North American empire and saying the world can go f*** itself. The inbuilt advantages are so many that even really bad political leaders can't actually sink the ship. — apokrisis
Plus the US military remains the largest in the world. — Marchesk
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