I'd like to argue the point but find substance to do so hard to come by :dunno:Quote:
If you were a foreign leader hostile to the United States — sitting in, say, Moscow or Beijing — how would you view the U.S. today?
You would know that it has conducted two largely failed wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, over the past 20 years and that many Americans have no interest in fighting another faraway conflict with a fuzzy connection to national security.
You would know that the U.S. itself can’t seem to decide how strongly it feels about democracy, with a former president and his allies around the country mimicking the playbook of autocrats willing to subvert election results.
And you would know that the U.S. is so politically polarized that many voters and members of Congress may not rally around a president even during a foreign crisis. Americans, after all, have reacted to the pandemic with division and anger, which has fueled widespread refusal to take lifesaving vaccines and continuing chaos in schools.
Given all of this, you might not be feeling especially intimidated by the U.S., even though it continues to have the world’s largest economy, most important currency and strongest military.
This background helps explain the tensions in both Ukraine and Taiwan. In each, an authoritarian power is making noises about invading a small nearby democracy, and the U.S. has issued stern warnings against any such action. The two authoritarian powers — Russia and China — may ultimately choose to stand down, at least temporarily. But their increasing aggression is a sign of their willingness to defy what their leaders see as a weakened U.S.
