In the 80s and 90s of the 20th century, America was the leading world power, having built a system of international relations based on principles. It managed to defeat the communist Soviet Union in the Cold War and offer its values as the basis for building the future world. I say "offered" - because there was no need to impose them - a very large part of the peoples of the world wanted to be part of the system of security and development, embodied by the leadership of the United States. This system was far from ideal - but it was the best that the world recognized in order to free itself from the nightmares of the 20th century.
This was commented on "Facebook" Ognyan Minchev.
The first quarter of the 21st century is a time of American leadership mediocrity, gross strategic mistakes and failures,
a period of increasing irresponsibility towards the voluntarily undertaken commitments of a benigh leader - "well-intentioned leader". After a decade of large-scale integration of former enemies into the structure of a new international order presided over by America, mediocre figures at the helm of power in Washington have allowed Moscow and Beijing to emancipate themselves geopolitically and create a new, large-scale challenge to their authoritarian alliance against the West and against the world.
This process culminates in 2025, when, led by Donald Trump in the White House, America practically identifies with this authoritarian alliance, confronting (in its new National Security Strategy) its allies from the international democratic community.
Is the quarter-century decline of America as a world power reversible?
For now, we cannot answer this question. During the first year of Donald Trump's presidency, we are witnessing the dismantling of the entire system of international life created by Washington after the end of World War II and leading to US strategic hegemony after the victory over communism. It is still too early to say in what direction America will go after this process of dynamic destruction. A number of observers - both supporters and opponents of the current White House administration - argue that no matter how we evaluate the current dismantling, it is in fact irreversible.
If this is true, it would mean that America - with its 340 million population, a political elite that inherited the views and values of the founders of the United States, an institutional system to preserve these values, and a political system - would surrender and affirm the dystopia of the right-wing radicals from MAGA and Silicon Valley.
I do not believe this will happen.
When many - both right-wing conservatives and left-wing liberals - believed that the radical leftist rebellion of the fairground "woke" movements cannot be stopped, and that America is rapidly becoming a decadent testing ground for neo-Trotskyist madness, I knew - I did not believe, but I knew - that the leftist madness would end, both in America and in Europe. Now the political pendulum has swung to the madness of the far right - after having gone to the far left. I know that this latest extreme will also have an end.
Geopolitical interests and processes are similar to processes in geology in that they are very powerful, long-term and super-inert. America will not tolerate being reduced to a petty sentinel over the Caribbean, the "American" Gulf and Greenland. Yesterday came another piece of news - Indonesia has concluded a long-term agreement to allow China to gain significant positions of control over the Straits of Malacca. Do you know what this means for trade between the West and Asia? Over the past quarter century, America has been mired in timelessness and carelessness, so Trump the destroyer is a natural result of this long geopolitical decline. After him, something new will come - a new impulse, a new order, a new structure of rivalry and cooperation.
America has wasted its first quarter of the 21st century. We will watch what it plans to do with the next quarter.