The End of the American Century-

[geek tragedy]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/end-of-the-american-century/514526/

The inaugural address of Donald Trump did not contain the word justice or cooperation or ideals or morals or truth or charity. It has only one reference to freedom. It did mention carnage and crime and tombstones and a variety of words never uttered before in a presidential inaugural. Since then, the president has doubled-down on his desire to build a wall on America’s Southern border and has said his administration will re-evaluate accepting refugees from designated Muslim countries and cut back by half the relatively small number of refugees accepted by the Obama administration. I spent seven years as editor of Time before I worked in the State Department as under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs. While I was editor of Time, I never wanted to be the first of Luce’s successors to pronounce the end of the American Century. In part, this was because of a misunderstanding of the term. Most people thought it meant American power or hegemony and there was not much diminution in America’s global power. What it really means is America as a global model and guarantor of freedom and rule of law and fairness.

Trump ’s administration is the death knell of the American Century.

...

And that was often the case. And no other nation, I promise you, ever talked to that foreign minister about transparency. That is America’s strength, not its weakness. The Chinese, and now the Trump administration, will resolutely practice non-interference in other nations’ affairs. America First is not a policy that any of our allies around the world want to hear. Our adversaries are delighted. Our power and influence with our friends and adversaries came in large part because we were the one nation that did not always put ourselves first.

American presidents operate along the realistic and idealistic sides of the foreign-policy continuum. But ever since Woodrow Wilson, Americans have always seen themselves as being the moral beacon that Luce talked about all those years ago. As Obama has said many times, our ideals are our policy. Trump appears to see those ideals as, at best, irrelevant, and at worst, effete.

Having traveled around the world on behalf of the State Department for the past three years, I can promise you that governments do not worry that America is too engaged—they worry when we disengage. And wherever we may disengage around the world, we are never replaced by a better actor. The president’s vision of putting up our national drawbridge and hunkering down mirrors the transformation of Great Britain to Little England after the end of World War II. The American Century was a term of pride for many and it represented the flowering not only of American power but American values.

That seems to have ended beginning last Friday.

The American Century, RIP.

It's time we refuse to call Donald Trump the leader of the free world. He is not, and no American president ever will be again.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. China is already making moves to fill the power vacuum.

tRump thinks he's being strong and forceful, igniting a devastating (to the US) trade war with Mexico as just one example.

But in sum total, his actions are making the US weaker, less respected, less listened to. He is opening opportunities for other countries to get into gaps and widen them for their own benefit.

[geek tragedy]

2. The void will be filled by the EU and by China, as the US follows Russia

into a status of regional powers with the ability to project military but not diplomatic power.

[raccoon]

3. I think he's right about the end of the American Century, but I disagree with

what he says about America.

While I was editor of Time, I never wanted to be the first of Luce’s successors to pronounce the end of the American Century. In part, this was because of a misunderstanding of the term. Most people thought it meant American power or hegemony and there was not much diminution in America’s global power. What it really means is America as a global model and guarantor of freedom and rule of law and fairness.

Tell that to the Iraqis after the US invaded, also to Chileans (US got rid of Allende), Guatemala (US got rid of Jacobo Arbenz), Iran (Mossadegh), and many others.

Our power and influence with our friends and adversaries came in large part because we were the one nation that did not always put ourselves first.

See above paragraph.

see also William Blum's America's Deadliest Export: Democracy - The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else (Zed Books), 2013, ISBN 1-78032-445-6. Or Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, revised edition (Common Courage Press), 2003, ISBN 1-56751-252-6

[geek tragedy]

5. it does over-romanticize US foreign policy

but he's right that the US has used soft power as a source of global influence, and that this influence will be replaced by more transactional actors such as China and Russia, with the EU being the only candidate to step into the soft power area.

[Blue_Tires]

4. If only someone you know, tried to warn folks

what life under the Trump Junta would be like...

[yurbud]

6. Bush was Caligula. Trump is his horse.