"The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
At the time I thought that it sounded pretty stupid. And, well, we saw how well it worked out.
It's very much a post-modern reinterpretation of the great man theory of history.
To be fair I think it's still a stupid point. It ignores the fact that this type of thing requires gullible/stupid/unwilling but nonetheless important groups to go along with it. Like right now, we can pretty reasonably put this squarely on the media and their business models riding on total viewership.
On a similar subject though I think talk of Trump doing permanent damage to the US's reputation is vastly overblown. The US's reputation survived GWB just fine. The minute Obama was in everyone breathed a sigh of relief and business continued as usual.
The problem for Trump is what damage he can do in the next 4 years that will need to be dealt with and cleaned up and the massive opportunities lost in those wasted years. But if we can all ride it out somehow and Trump doesn't manage to collapse the global economic or political system, the US should be able to recover if we have a decent Democrat following him.
There are different aspects to reputation. IIRC, GWB never did much damage to the US's credibility (at least to friendly-ish regimes) and reliability, which are two areas to which Trump is taking a jackhammer. Furthermore, GWB had 9/11 as a backup justification for pretty much anything. If Trump chooses a random Asian nation to invade, it's not going to be viewed the same way as the invasion of Afghanistan, or even Iraq.
No one outside the US and I guess the UK bought the Iraq War as having anything to do with 9/11.
GWB did a lot of damage too. It didn't matter once Obama came along. GWB alienated allies and fucked us in enumerable unfixable ways. The international community understood that the US was still the US.
The danger of Trump is not another stupid war (unless it's with China) or being an idiot. The US can and has recovered from stupid foreign policy. The danger is Trump starting a bunch of trade wars or starting a war with China and fucking the global economic system. Or dismantling NATO. Shit that goes wrong right now not damaged reputation issues decades down the line.
But if he is contained, the US will be ok enough coming out the other end. Just like with GWB.
The Iraq War was never sold as having to do with 9/11, at least not internationally. The presented arguments were that Saddam was amassing weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to Middle East peace.
And for the record, Poland, Denmark, Portugal and Spain sent troops in addition to the UK as NATO nations. Australia also contributed. A wide range of other countries provided troops in the occupation afterwards.
Again, there are different sorts of reputation. A compulsive liar has a different reputation than a violent serial killer, and people will respond to different reputations differently (obv). There was sure as hell never, at least on my part, concern that GWB might start a war with China. They were just going to go roll another Middle Eastern country, as Americans are somewhat prone to doing regardless of who's President. It certainly wasn't a GWB-only thing; it was remarked more than once that someone was really following in his father's footsteps.
And that reputation will not outlive Trump's Presidency, the same as it didn't GWB's.
A lot of nations signed on for various reasons but there has never seemed much indication to me that most nations bought the US's bullshit.
Also, you said "Furthermore, GWB had 9/11 as a backup justification for pretty much anything." so, like, that's what I'm talking about. You said they sold his foreign relations, which would be Iraq War more then anything, on 9/11. And yeah, they kinda did. It was just transparently bullshit.
GWB was a moron and a bullshiter and did a lot of harm. But once he was gone, no one thought "Man, the US is a crazy person who can never be trusted again." Nations get shifts in government. Certainly at the actually-running-the-place level.
And again, you are ignoring the fact that these were happening in different areas of foreign policy. In fact, completely fucking toss out the notion of "foreign policy". There is no generic "foreign policy" score that Presidents are graded on. They're graded on individual issues and on what people think they'll do w.r.t. any particular issue w.r.t. any particular foreign actor.
Bush is going to attack some foreign nation based on some bullshit, but what do we care, NATO's still intact and the US isn't coming to invade us vs Trump is threatening the documents and principles that underpin NATO, period. That's a qualitative difference that is meaningful for NATO nations. It doesn't matter how much of an asshat Bush was, as long as he was an asshat within certain boundaries, so listing all his terrible crimes is beside the point.
I.e. I don't mind a friend who gets into arguments with his mom; I do mind a friend who gets into arguments with bouncers and security guards.
I.e. a Republican voter might not mind a President who sticks it to Democrats, but they will mind a President who sticks it to Republicans.
I.e. Germany might not mind if the US decides to fuck around and destabilize the Middle East, but they will mind if they fuck around and destabilize Eastern Europe.
Not all harm is equivalent. If Trump dissolves NATO, or withdraws the US from NATO, or qualitatively makes NATO nations believe that the US might not intervene to defend them, there is not necessarily a "reset" for that. Once the four years are done, things on the ground may have changed in substantially, irreversible ways.
To wit: I don't understand this vague, "BUT BUSH WAS REALLY BAD TOO," argument. It's downright incoherent to me and does not, to me, reflect in any way how sensible foreign leaders viewed the Bush presidency. Foreign policy isn't established based on binary scale judgements of foreign leaders.
Not to mention, the US hasn't really recovered its reputation from the Bush presidency. Obama spent 8 years trying to restore it, but there's no erasing history. You think Pakistan or Iran or North Korea look at the US the same now as they did ... well, actually, they probably never looked at the US differently, since, like I said, the US tends to just roll up a small nation every once in a while anyways. Bush wasn't really an outlier in this regard. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada If you're a serious foreign policy wonk in a US ally nation, you're just used to this shit by now. Regime change was not a new US foreign policy idea invented by the Bush II administration.
You don't understand the argument because, well, I don't know. But you are still not seeming to understand the argument and are arguing against some other one I didn't make.
Trump can fuck things up real bad. But the point is that if he doesn't, the US will not be irreparably damaged as some people have been saying. Like, if Trump doesn't destroy NATO, NATO will get along fine once he's gone. "Phew, that crazy fucker is gone, we can get back to business as usual" is not foreign to foreign policy. It's happened before.
Again, if we make it out of these 4 years without Trump imploding the global economic or political order, the fact that the US elected a madman for 4 years is not gonna be a huge drag on future Presidents and their agendas beyond the fallout of whatever he got up to.
I might have mentally appended your post to another quote tree and interpreted it in the incorrect context as a result. Apologies.
Anyways, saying that things just went back to "normal" after Bush II left is probably incorrect. Each President's actions are remembered and together they establish a broader pattern of US foreign policy upon which other nations make predictions and develop strategies. I'm hard-pressed now to remember what non-US foreign policy events occurred during Bush II's administration, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them have lasted. Consider that it is just as valid to think of the US as a nation run by Republican regime-changers that get interrupted by Democratic humanitarians every once in a while as the other way around. Obama didn't "undo" Bush II's effects on America's worldwide reputation; he just wasn't Bush II, so nations were willing to engage with him on that basis, and now people have to engage with Trump on this new basis.
But that doesn't mean that a President doesn't have a long-term impact on the nation's foreign reputation. The Iranian revolution was decades ago and it's still a deeply influential event in the Greater Middle East. That the US will just up and regime change nations they don't like every once in a while isn't just a unique aspect of a select set of US Presidents; there have been enough of them that it now adheres to the US's reputation, and while Bush II might not have been a critical factor in establish that reputation, he nevertheless contributed to it. (As did Obama, arguably, with the Libyan intervention.)
Furthermore, sometimes events are set into motion that are largely irreversible but might also take years to play out. If some nations don't think that the US is a reliable trade partner any more, they'll pursue trade ties with other nations, like China, and just because Kanye is now the President in 2021, that doesn't mean those new trade ties just get dissolved or thrown out. There's no disclaimer clause in RCEP that says that RCEP goes away whenever Trump is no longer President. Or one of the major reasons why the AIIB has seen such support - at least reportedly - is due to the US financial collapse in 2008 as a hedge against another such American financial disaster.
To be realistic, trade policy is something that takes years if not decades to meaningfully shift. There is a limited amount of truly irreversible harm that Trump can do, but there are no guarantees for who the next President(s) will be after Trump either, and "technically reversible" does not mean "will be reversed". History generally moves on tides and currents, rather than abrupt tsunamis, but that a) doesn't mean that tsunamis don't happen, and b) doesn't mean that one event can't start a tide or cause one to reach an overflow (tipping) point.
Edit: And c) Trump might just be the crest of a wave. Foreign nations are aware that the US is a democracy. President Trump isn't an unanticipable aberration in the fabric of the universe. He was elected, and his election says... something... about the US voting populace, which is something that may - or may not - persist even when Trump is no longer President. It's true that President West might destroy the Great Wall of the United States in 2017, but for him to do so, he has to overcome the populist sentiments that put that wall up in the first place. Consider, hypothetically, if Putin dies tomorrow, how much/likely does Russia actually change?
"The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
At the time I thought that it sounded pretty stupid. And, well, we saw how well it worked out.
I thought that statement was more about the idea that the US was so powerful that we didn't need to concern ourselves with studying "the way things are" because we could change it, dangerously arrogant, but not about blatantly denying reality, just thinking that we had the power to change the "facts on the ground," as it were. A walking fait accompli.
Somewhat true, since we did singlehandedly shift the balance of power in the Middle East, just not in a way that Bush probably wanted (vastly empowering the Iranian position, for one).
More like "Bush was OK because he was not threatening to undermine the entire structure by which the relative world stability is enforced, and was not willing to cede aspects of that hegemony from the relatively benign United States to the openly hostile Russia. He did some stupid things, but the wars he threatened were regional and not global. Nor did they involve major trading partners nor strategic positions. Nor did they upset longstanding alliances and their potential blowback would not threaten those we might consider members of the international community in good standing."
Bush went and shoved around the kid no one really liked anyway, and sure it was dumb and petty; but the price was largly borne by the US.
Trump... Goddamn trump wants to push around everyone. He wants to push around his allies in favor of those who had been his adversaries. He wants to push around other big kids who might be able to fight back. He is making all the other kids who depended on him for protection and so deferred their self interest in favor of the US's start to consider maybe bucking that trend.
None of that the shit that Bush did is even close to the level that Trump has done in one goddamn month!
What you're talking about hasn't happened yet, though. Nothing Trump has done in the last month comes close to the damage of the Iraq War. I agree he has the potential to do much worse, but this isn't Minority Report.
More like "Bush was OK because he was not threatening to undermine the entire structure by which the relative world stability is enforced, and was not willing to cede aspects of that hegemony from the relatively benign United States to the openly hostile Russia. He did some stupid things, but the wars he threatened were regional and not global. Nor did they involve major trading partners nor strategic positions. Nor did they upset longstanding alliances and their potential blowback would not threaten those we might consider members of the international community in good standing."
Bush went and shoved around the kid no one really liked anyway, and sure it was dumb and petty; but the price was largly borne by the US.
Trump... Goddamn trump wants to push around everyone. He wants to push around his allies in favor of those who had been his adversaries. He wants to push around other big kids who might be able to fight back. He is making all the other kids who depended on him for protection and so deferred their self interest in favor of the US's start to consider maybe bucking that trend.
None of that the shit that Bush did is even close to the level that Trump has done in one goddamn month!
What you're talking about hasn't happened yet, though. Nothing Trump has done in the last month comes close to the damage of the Iraq War. I agree he has the potential to do much worse, but this isn't Minority Report.
Yes it has happened. It's like after a bullet has been fired but before it lands. It might hit nothing. It might kill someone. But certainly something has happened.
Trumps actions have more or less destabilized the world order. This is bad. This is super bad. The last time this happened we had a world war over it. And similarly the time before that. Those were not fun times; they make the Iraq war, a war minor in scale and effect to even other conflicts, pale in comparison.
maybe nothing happens. Maybe we get things under control and impeach trump and say "no biggie" guys and they believe us. And we trudge along repairing things. Or maybe no one really trusts us again, they build their own militaries and stop looking for us to lead militarily. They look to China and we all live in the world of Chinese hegemony.
Or maybe they look either to themselves. The clean and orderly treaties we had fail and are replaced by interlocking alliances of convenience. The lack of a hegemon means everyone and their mother gets nukes. Then some backwater duke gets assassinated and the world is a wasteland.
What you're talking about hasn't happened yet, though. Nothing Trump has done in the last month comes close to the damage of the Iraq War. I agree he has the potential to do much worse, but this isn't Minority Report.
1. Your hypothesis crux relies on Trump being a rational actor, he isn't. And even rational actors can be disastrous with foreign policy.
2. His ambitions and those of his government are showing consistent patterns we saw with W.'s, on steroids and implied to be even more erratic and prone to malicious behavior. Everything his critics have thought about him haven't only been right, but that we've been too conservative with how much destruction he's going to be. Look at what he's done in 3 weeks.
3. Trump's time in office hasn't been boringly dull pre-9/11 like W.'s was, and even if it was how he ran on his campaign has horrific implications for what he's going to be doing when he gets things ramped up. The man has caused international incidents, and concern from the international governing bodies back then, and he's still on that track while in office. Maybe he's more unhinged now, actually, from the stress of not being adored by everyone. We'd be fools to ignore the signs.
4. You don't have to be Tom Cruise to see where Trump's reign is going. Plus, he's surrounded by guys like Bannon, and still is going to bat for Flynn. This should be very concerning when it comes to matters circling Iran. Especially since China's cooled things down on their end, who knows how he's going to react to Mexico down the line?
5. Terrorists organizations have started actively trolling him, he's going to be easy to bait into another Afghanistan or Iraq 2.0. More than W. was.
Yes it has happened. It's like after a bullet has been fired but before it lands. It might hit nothing. It might kill someone. But certainly something has happened.
Trumps actions have more or less destabilized the world order. This is bad. This is super bad. The last time this happened we had a world war over it. And similarly the time before that. Those were not fun times; they make the Iraq war, a war minor in scale and effect to even other conflicts, pale in comparison.
maybe nothing happens. Maybe we get things under control and impeach trump and say "no biggie" guys and they believe us. And we trudge along repairing things. Or maybe no one really trusts us again, they build their own militaries and stop looking for us to lead militarily. They look to China and we all live in the world of Chinese hegemony.
Or maybe they look either to themselves. The clean and orderly treaties we had fail and are replaced by interlocking alliances of convenience. The lack of a hegemon means everyone and their mother gets nukes. Then some backwater duke gets assassinated and the world is a wasteland.
I agree, those hypotheticals outside of impeachment are bad. Still, what Trump has done in the last month hasn't yet equalled the damage of the Iraq War. That was one of the worst US foreign policy blunders of all time. Of all time. Let's keep things in perspective.
Yes it has happened. It's like after a bullet has been fired but before it lands. It might hit nothing. It might kill someone. But certainly something has happened.
Trumps actions have more or less destabilized the world order. This is bad. This is super bad. The last time this happened we had a world war over it. And similarly the time before that. Those were not fun times; they make the Iraq war, a war minor in scale and effect to even other conflicts, pale in comparison.
maybe nothing happens. Maybe we get things under control and impeach trump and say "no biggie" guys and they believe us. And we trudge along repairing things. Or maybe no one really trusts us again, they build their own militaries and stop looking for us to lead militarily. They look to China and we all live in the world of Chinese hegemony.
Or maybe they look either to themselves. The clean and orderly treaties we had fail and are replaced by interlocking alliances of convenience. The lack of a hegemon means everyone and their mother gets nukes. Then some backwater duke gets assassinated and the world is a wasteland.
I agree, those hypotheticals outside of impeachment are bad. Still, what Trump has done in the last month hasn't yet equalled the damage of the Iraq War. That was one of the worst US foreign policy blunders of all time. Of all time. Let's keep things in perspective.
That's hard to really say however. Bad for Iraq and the ME in general? Absolutely.
Bad for the USA and our general standing on the world stage? Ehhh... not so much. We may have gotten a lot of flak for it, but it didn't really shake any foundations or rattle the cages of our allies in any real way.
Trump is causing a massive amount of uncertainty and loss of faith in doing business with the USA as a whole.
It hasn't really caused concrete issues... yet. But the longer team Trump sits in power and is allowed to throw around crap to see what sticks to the walls the longest... the more these issues will solidify.
Allies are not just looking at the USA like we made a mistake... Trump is making countries looking to do business with others instead of us at all... Trump is making allies question whether the USA can even be counted on to defend them, or if we're going to pull out of any NATO style obligations and/or leave them high and dry when the wolves come howling at their doors.
This is an erosion of trust in the USA at such a fundamental level that Iraq, for as big of a mistake and shitshow as it was, just can't even come close to approaching. And this is all within the first month of President Trump.
That is what has people in a panic because this is some serious damage that needs to be shored up before all of those allies wind up in treaties/alliances with other players on the world stage.
China and Russia will not sit idle and let us catch our breath, they are going to be like water seeping into every crack that comes to the surface with US foreign policy that they can reach, and plenty of allies will do the same... Either out of necessity or self interest.
That's hard to really say however. Bad for Iraq and the ME in general? Absolutely.
Bad for the USA and our general standing on the world stage? Ehhh... not so much. We may have gotten a lot of flak for it, but it didn't really shake any foundations or rattle the cages of our allies in any real way.
The problem is that cage rattling could be temporary while over four thousand US military dead and many times that wounded is not. Is my point, when responding to this:
The cage rattling is not temporary. You have made a sound and everyone heard it. Everyone now has to respond as if you're breaking out. There is no going back.
Iraq said "OK we are willing to go to war with a minor nation who had issues with our allies before" and also probably "we are willing to learn from our mistakes". Trump has said "you are one fluke election from losing your standing in the world". And so everyone now has to play as if they are.
Once trust is gone so is the easy hegemony. No more network effects. We either have to enforce it or lose it and neither are good for anyone involved.
If...IF! There is a way to put the genie back in the bottle it will not be an easy process. Nor will it be cheap, in money or in lives.
Edit: here is really what you need to know. No friendly foreign nations government considered the potential need to defend against the US or increase military spending to cover for a US that failed to meet its obligations as a result of the Iraq war. It had minimal policy implications except insomuch as the level of support was a domestic issue (and even then lack of support did not produce international repercussions). Trump has started those policy wheels turning.
Edit2: maybe this will make sense.
Have you ever had someone threaten you? I mean seriously threaten; credibly. If you have you probably know that there isn't really any going back from that. Even if the threat isn't carried out you can't go along like it never happened. Trump more or less just threatened to burn down the house everyone was living in.
Every country should have a plan if America goes cuckoo
Why wouldn't you have a plan
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Every country should have a plan if America goes cuckoo
Why wouldn't you have a plan
In much the same way I don't have a plan for surviving nuclear war.
Some things are too much up to stupid dumb luck to be worth bothering with reasonably mitigating.
+12
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
edited February 2017
The only way to actually regain trust will be to significantly reduce the level of extremism in our society. A narrow Democratic victory over a near-majority of psychotics and psychotic-enablers won't do it. We have to be able to say either that the Republican party won't attain power again or that they are no longer crazy.
In an unclassified document titled "CONOP 8888," officials from U.S. Strategic Command used the specter of a planet-wide attack by the walking dead as a training template for how to plan for real-life, large-scale operations, emergencies and catastrophes.
And the Pentagon says there's a reasonable explanation.
"The document is identified as a training tool used in an in-house training exercise where students learn about the basic concepts of military plans and order development through a fictional training scenario," Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command, told CNN. "This document is not a U.S. Strategic Command plan."
Nevertheless, the preparation and thoroughness exhibited by the Pentagon for how to prepare for a scenario in which Americans are about to be overrun by flesh-eating invaders is quite impressive.
Every country should have a plan if America goes cuckoo
Why wouldn't you have a plan
its not about having a plan, it's about enacting it (and well with foreign policy you wouldn't, things change too fast to have a specific policy proposal ready for if the US decides it's going to dumb).
Additionally plans take time to enact and that is a problem. No one can just turn a switch and be ready for the post hegemony world.
Every country should have a plan if America goes cuckoo
Why wouldn't you have a plan
In much the same way I don't have a plan for surviving nuclear war.
Some things are too much up to stupid dumb luck to be worth bothering with reasonably mitigating.
As things are looking now it's not a "if the US goes mental" but "when".
Which is why I'm so insistent on the EU cutting every goddamn deal with the US there is (STOP FUCKING FEEDING SURVEILLANCE OF PRIVATE CITIZENS TO THE GODDAMN NSA, WITHOUT ANYTHING IN RETURN!!! :mad:).
The only way to actually regain trust will be to significantly reduce the level of extremism in our society. A narrow Democratic victory over a near-majority of psychotics and psychotic-enablers won't do it. We have to be able to say either that the Republican party won't attain power again or that they are no longer crazy.
"Democratic victories" will be increasingly unlikely in the coming years anyhow. I think GOP rule will be the american default in the coming decades and the rest of the world is gonna have to learn to deal with that.
"Democratic victories" will be increasingly unlikely in the coming years anyhow. I think GOP rule will be the american default in the coming decades and the rest of the world is gonna have to learn to deal with that.
Yup, gonna be difficult to turn back the clock with the GOP in full power right now.
On a similar subject though I think talk of Trump doing permanent damage to the US's reputation is vastly overblown. The US's reputation survived GWB just fine. The minute Obama was in everyone breathed a sigh of relief and business continued as usual.
The problem for Trump is what damage he can do in the next 4 years that will need to be dealt with and cleaned up and the massive opportunities lost in those wasted years. But if we can all ride it out somehow and Trump doesn't manage to collapse the global economic or political system, the US should be able to recover if we have a decent Democrat following him.
There are different aspects to reputation. IIRC, GWB never did much damage to the US's credibility (at least to friendly-ish regimes) and reliability, which are two areas to which Trump is taking a jackhammer. Furthermore, GWB had 9/11 as a backup justification for pretty much anything. If Trump chooses a random Asian nation to invade, it's not going to be viewed the same way as the invasion of Afghanistan, or even Iraq.
I disagree. W. did incredible damage to the US's reputation and alienated allies left and right, the Iraq war being the epicenter for the frayed alliances. The reason it wasn't permanently crippling is that once he left Obama literally spent years and political capital over the world repairing the damage. The W. administration was not as reliable as Obama's was on the national stage, they're only reliable in comparison to Trump. IIRC they pissed off NK so they started testing nukes again via the Axis of Evil bullshit.
edit: But yeah, which ever Dem picks up after Trump is going to face a greater challenge on this front.
That was not remotely the same thing. First off, the GWB never openly derided America's alliances or suggest abandoning them. The US was going on another boneheaded Middle East adventure, but that was their prerogative and there was never a suggestion that anybody not joining them on it would be cut off in any way.
Well yes actually, there was very much that suggestion. It caused a massive amount of resentment.
Would it be a terribly bad idea for the EU as collective, supposing that we follow through on Donny's idea of withdrawing from NATO to immediately form a pact with China, particularly because it gives them stronger leverage with Russia, geographically, since Russia is constantly proving itself to be a willful aggressor?
Would it be a terribly bad idea for the EU as collective, supposing that we follow through on Donny's idea of withdrawing from NATO to immediately form a pact with China, particularly because it gives them stronger leverage with Russia, geographically, since Russia is constantly proving itself to be a willful aggressor?
Short answer, yes.
Long answer. A bigger yes.
China isn't exactly a friendly smiling neighbor. And not only would it keep all the same EU issues on the table RE: A super power with influence and direct access to countries right on Russia's border... but now that super power would be China, who is a direct neighbor of Russia themselves.
If you think Putin was paranoid and unreasonable about the USA having NATO influence at their door, what would he do when he was effectively surrounded by China?
On a similar subject though I think talk of Trump doing permanent damage to the US's reputation is vastly overblown. The US's reputation survived GWB just fine. The minute Obama was in everyone breathed a sigh of relief and business continued as usual.
The problem for Trump is what damage he can do in the next 4 years that will need to be dealt with and cleaned up and the massive opportunities lost in those wasted years. But if we can all ride it out somehow and Trump doesn't manage to collapse the global economic or political system, the US should be able to recover if we have a decent Democrat following him.
There are different aspects to reputation. IIRC, GWB never did much damage to the US's credibility (at least to friendly-ish regimes) and reliability, which are two areas to which Trump is taking a jackhammer. Furthermore, GWB had 9/11 as a backup justification for pretty much anything. If Trump chooses a random Asian nation to invade, it's not going to be viewed the same way as the invasion of Afghanistan, or even Iraq.
I disagree. W. did incredible damage to the US's reputation and alienated allies left and right, the Iraq war being the epicenter for the frayed alliances. The reason it wasn't permanently crippling is that once he left Obama literally spent years and political capital over the world repairing the damage. The W. administration was not as reliable as Obama's was on the national stage, they're only reliable in comparison to Trump. IIRC they pissed off NK so they started testing nukes again via the Axis of Evil bullshit.
edit: But yeah, which ever Dem picks up after Trump is going to face a greater challenge on this front.
That was not remotely the same thing. First off, the GWB never openly derided America's alliances or suggest abandoning them. The US was going on another boneheaded Middle East adventure, but that was their prerogative and there was never a suggestion that anybody not joining them on it would be cut off in any way.
Well yes actually, there was very much that suggestion. It caused a massive amount of resentment.
On a similar subject though I think talk of Trump doing permanent damage to the US's reputation is vastly overblown. The US's reputation survived GWB just fine. The minute Obama was in everyone breathed a sigh of relief and business continued as usual.
The problem for Trump is what damage he can do in the next 4 years that will need to be dealt with and cleaned up and the massive opportunities lost in those wasted years. But if we can all ride it out somehow and Trump doesn't manage to collapse the global economic or political system, the US should be able to recover if we have a decent Democrat following him.
There are different aspects to reputation. IIRC, GWB never did much damage to the US's credibility (at least to friendly-ish regimes) and reliability, which are two areas to which Trump is taking a jackhammer. Furthermore, GWB had 9/11 as a backup justification for pretty much anything. If Trump chooses a random Asian nation to invade, it's not going to be viewed the same way as the invasion of Afghanistan, or even Iraq.
I disagree. W. did incredible damage to the US's reputation and alienated allies left and right, the Iraq war being the epicenter for the frayed alliances. The reason it wasn't permanently crippling is that once he left Obama literally spent years and political capital over the world repairing the damage. The W. administration was not as reliable as Obama's was on the national stage, they're only reliable in comparison to Trump. IIRC they pissed off NK so they started testing nukes again via the Axis of Evil bullshit.
edit: But yeah, which ever Dem picks up after Trump is going to face a greater challenge on this front.
That was not remotely the same thing. First off, the GWB never openly derided America's alliances or suggest abandoning them. The US was going on another boneheaded Middle East adventure, but that was their prerogative and there was never a suggestion that anybody not joining them on it would be cut off in any way.
Well yes actually, there was very much that suggestion. It caused a massive amount of resentment.
The only way to actually regain trust will be to significantly reduce the level of extremism in our society. A narrow Democratic victory over a near-majority of psychotics and psychotic-enablers won't do it. We have to be able to say either that the Republican party won't attain power again or that they are no longer crazy.
If we ever put the genie back in the bottle I think there is real cause and reason to reform our constitution and voting system to make it impervious to the kind of one-party rule that the GOP has been pulling off. This election has clearly demonstrated that every 4 years our allies could be working with a very different US and that does irreparable harm to our ability to negotiate (hence why Flynn talking to Russia about new sanctions is such a huge fucking issue).
Unfortunately a lot of this requires the GOP to recognize what they've become and step back from it, which I highly doubt. I'm sure they'd love one party rule. They've seen democrats as an illegitimate party for the majority of the 20th century, and that won't change anytime soon.
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
And does China really have the kind of force projection to actually help them? Other than starting a second front, I guess
China doesn't have much ability to project force--yet. But they've been working hard over the last 10 years to improve that, and they'll continue to improve it.
It is unlikely in the near-medium term that they'll become a world power militarily. They're mainly concerned with keeping their sea lanes open and having allies on their borders. They only have one foreign base so far, and getting the sort of defense agreements necessary to build more takes time, politics, diplomacy, and a lot of palm-greasing. So don't expect that to change dramatically unless they decide it's in their best interests, they can afford it, and the world order changes dramatically (the latter of which we may well see).
All in all this means that China and Europe are more about the trade deals and "enemy of my enemy is my friend" vs. Russia than that we'll ever see Chinese CVBGs making port in France.
The administration of Bush the Lesser certainly strained our standing in the world and among our allies, but it also had the mitigating factor of 9/11 to kind of explain why we suddenly went insane. What is the mitigating factor for Trump? He campaigned on this bullshit and managed to win. Barely, and with some help from a foreign power (and the FBI) but still fairly and in an open election. That changes the assumptions in a way that lashing out from a uniquely horrible terrorist attack doesn't. It also ends any hope of viewing 2000-2008 excesses as sui generis.
We will violate the Geneva Convention and torture people. We might target innocents for purposeful killings (which is distinct from collateral damage) as policy set at the highest levels. Turning a blind eye and hoping for the best isn't a good policy, but an understandable one in response to events under Bush the Lesser. Now? It is just choosing willful blindness. And a lot of foreign governments aren't going to be as willing. Nor will they make the assumption that these are unique aberrations. This is who we are now. And who we will continue to be, depending on a coin flip every four years. You can't unring that bell.
The administration of Bush the Lesser certainly strained our standing in the world and among our allies, but it also had the mitigating factor of 9/11 to kind of explain why we suddenly went insane. What is the mitigating factor for Trump? He campaigned on this bullshit and managed to win. Barely, and with some help from a foreign power (and the FBI) but still fairly and in an open election. That changes the assumptions in a way that lashing out from a uniquely horrible terrorist attack doesn't. It also ends any hope of viewing 2000-2008 excesses as sui generis.
We will violate the Geneva Convention and torture people. We might target innocents for purposeful killings (which is distinct from collateral damage) as policy set at the highest levels. Turning a blind eye and hoping for the best isn't a good policy, but an understandable one in response to events under Bush the Lesser. Now? It is just choosing willful blindness. And a lot of foreign governments aren't going to be as willing. Nor will they make the assumption that these are unique aberrations. This is who we are now. And who we will continue to be, depending on a coin flip every four years. You can't unring that bell.
The bolded part is the important bit for our future.
We can unring that bell to some extent, but the time period for that is dwindling rapidly.
We've still done damage, but if we outed Trump and made sure that we put in protections from this kind of mess from happening again in the future... it would still be unsettling what happened, but it would ultimately be smoothed over given some time.
But if we stay the course we are on? Yeah, the bolded part is our future. No one is going to want to rely on a bipolar nuclear super power for their countries continued well being (or even existence).
Elsewhere in foreign affairs, the White House has gotten the Swedish embassy irritated with the latest announcement of a fabricated terrorist incident, and is doing the (citation needed) thing in response to the president's claims.
Addressing Trump in an article on Sunday, the Aftonbladet tabloid wrote, "This happened in Sweden Friday night, Mr President," and then listed in English some events that included a man being treated for severe burns, an avalanche warning and police chasing a drunken driver.
On a similar subject though I think talk of Trump doing permanent damage to the US's reputation is vastly overblown. The US's reputation survived GWB just fine. The minute Obama was in everyone breathed a sigh of relief and business continued as usual.
The problem for Trump is what damage he can do in the next 4 years that will need to be dealt with and cleaned up and the massive opportunities lost in those wasted years. But if we can all ride it out somehow and Trump doesn't manage to collapse the global economic or political system, the US should be able to recover if we have a decent Democrat following him.
There are different aspects to reputation. IIRC, GWB never did much damage to the US's credibility (at least to friendly-ish regimes) and reliability, which are two areas to which Trump is taking a jackhammer. Furthermore, GWB had 9/11 as a backup justification for pretty much anything. If Trump chooses a random Asian nation to invade, it's not going to be viewed the same way as the invasion of Afghanistan, or even Iraq.
I disagree. W. did incredible damage to the US's reputation and alienated allies left and right, the Iraq war being the epicenter for the frayed alliances. The reason it wasn't permanently crippling is that once he left Obama literally spent years and political capital over the world repairing the damage. The W. administration was not as reliable as Obama's was on the national stage, they're only reliable in comparison to Trump. IIRC they pissed off NK so they started testing nukes again via the Axis of Evil bullshit.
edit: But yeah, which ever Dem picks up after Trump is going to face a greater challenge on this front.
That was not remotely the same thing. First off, the GWB never openly derided America's alliances or suggest abandoning them. The US was going on another boneheaded Middle East adventure, but that was their prerogative and there was never a suggestion that anybody not joining them on it would be cut off in any way.
Well yes actually, there was very much that suggestion. It caused a massive amount of resentment.
Yeah, and I vividly remember how everyone suddenly hated the French
Yeah, and the French government did not care (from Wikipedia):
In response to the change, French Embassy spokeswoman Nathalie Loiseau commented "It's exactly a non-issue... We focus on the serious issues",[10] and noted that fries originated in Belgium.[11] She then remarked that France's position on the change was that they were "in a very serious moment dealing with very serious issues, and we are not focusing on the name [Americans] give to potatoes."[12] After the name reversal, an Embassy spokeswoman said: "our relations are definitely much more important than potatoes ... and our relations are back on track."[4]
Also, that article is from November 2001. It's in reference to 9/11 and Afghanistan, not Iraq, and France participated in Afghanistan, because the US invoked Article 5. Double also, calling it resentment or alienation is misleading; various European nations may have thought the invasion of Iraq was stupid and disliked the decision, but that doesn't mean that it caused visceral emotional responses towards the very relationship itself. Not agreeing with/approving of something an ally does does not necessarily imply questioning the alliance itself.
There were no reports that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs were concerned about the status of NATO and its alliance with the US. I can promise you I never joked about Canadian Anschluss during the entire 8 years of Bush's administration.
Everybody understood what Bush meant and understood his intentions. His message and his people's messages and the State Department's messages were coordinated and sensible and clearly defined a particular outlook on the world that, while perhaps asshatty and threatening to some nations, did not represent a direct threat to Western interests. Nobody understands what the fuck Trump means ever, so they're all obliged to prepare contingencies and hedge.
Everybody understood what Bush meant and understood his intentions. His message and his people's messages and the State Department's messages were coordinated and sensible and clearly defined a particular outlook on the world that, while perhaps asshatty and threatening to some nations, did not represent a direct threat to Western interests. Nobody understands what the fuck Trump means ever, so they're all obliged to prepare contingencies and hedge.
I'd definitely classify the Iraq war as a sort of political capital "we've had your backs this whole time, so help us do this one thing even though it's stupid" thing. It certainly harmed world opinion of the U.S., but it was entirely within the bounds of existing relationships.
Everybody understood what Bush meant and understood his intentions. His message and his people's messages and the State Department's messages were coordinated and sensible and clearly defined a particular outlook on the world that, while perhaps asshatty and threatening to some nations, did not represent a direct threat to Western interests. Nobody understands what the fuck Trump means ever, so they're all obliged to prepare contingencies and hedge.
I'd definitely classify the Iraq war as a sort of political capital "we've had your backs this whole time, so help us do this one thing even though it's stupid" thing. It certainly harmed world opinion of the U.S., but it was entirely within the bounds of existing relationships.
It took hold in quite a few places too. It made Canadian politics nastier for awhile and led to the surreality of "we should have joined this war to placate Washington" being one of the core issues in he 2004 election, with that sort of thinking being a major chunk of half the spectrum's politics here since.
If Germany's reputation can eventually bounce back from performing the Holocaust on a religious minority and fucking up the world order for a while, it seems like a pretty safe bet the US will eventually bounce back from Trump denying a religious minoritiy entry to the US and fucking up the world order for a while, especially given how much public (and judicial) push back he is getting.
Not that it isn't terrifying and horrible anyhow, of course. It's pretty rough when the nicest thing you can say is "at least he's not quite literally Hitler."
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
If Germany's reputation can eventually bounce back from performing the Holocaust on a religious minority and fucking up the world order for a while, it seems like a pretty safe bet the US will eventually bounce back from Trump denying a religious minoritiy entry to the US and fucking up the world order for a while, especially given how much public (and judicial) push back he is getting.
Not that it isn't terrifying and horrible anyhow, of course. It's pretty rough when the nicest thing you can say is "at least he's not quite literally Hitler."
It also took 30-40 bloody years for that to happen. We're not at that point yet, but if the damage can last half a lifetime...
On a similar subject though I think talk of Trump doing permanent damage to the US's reputation is vastly overblown. The US's reputation survived GWB just fine. The minute Obama was in everyone breathed a sigh of relief and business continued as usual.
The problem for Trump is what damage he can do in the next 4 years that will need to be dealt with and cleaned up and the massive opportunities lost in those wasted years. But if we can all ride it out somehow and Trump doesn't manage to collapse the global economic or political system, the US should be able to recover if we have a decent Democrat following him.
Did it survive GWB just fine? Or did it heal wrong? Does it open up again at the slightest impact?
If Germany's reputation can eventually bounce back from performing the Holocaust on a religious minority and fucking up the world order for a while, it seems like a pretty safe bet the US will eventually bounce back from Trump denying a religious minoritiy entry to the US and fucking up the world order for a while, especially given how much public (and judicial) push back he is getting.
Not that it isn't terrifying and horrible anyhow, of course. It's pretty rough when the nicest thing you can say is "at least he's not quite literally Hitler."
Germany "bounced back" off the ground after being stomped into it by greater military forces. Let's see how that works out for the U.S.
Yeah, I never suggested it would be quick. Shit's pretty dire.
Edit: Still, it's healthy to keep in mind this won't be completely permanent. If nothing else, the rise of AI and increased automation during these next few decades will kill the Republican party or change it so much it'll be unrecognizable.
Germany was also rebuilt by an occupying force with a period of denazification wherein the allies stripped any nazi they could find from any position of power.
The equivalent today would be removing every elected republican from office or appointment and banning anyone with said affiliation from ever attaining power again.
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It's very much a post-modern reinterpretation of the great man theory of history.
To be fair I think it's still a stupid point. It ignores the fact that this type of thing requires gullible/stupid/unwilling but nonetheless important groups to go along with it. Like right now, we can pretty reasonably put this squarely on the media and their business models riding on total viewership.
I might have mentally appended your post to another quote tree and interpreted it in the incorrect context as a result. Apologies.
Anyways, saying that things just went back to "normal" after Bush II left is probably incorrect. Each President's actions are remembered and together they establish a broader pattern of US foreign policy upon which other nations make predictions and develop strategies. I'm hard-pressed now to remember what non-US foreign policy events occurred during Bush II's administration, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them have lasted. Consider that it is just as valid to think of the US as a nation run by Republican regime-changers that get interrupted by Democratic humanitarians every once in a while as the other way around. Obama didn't "undo" Bush II's effects on America's worldwide reputation; he just wasn't Bush II, so nations were willing to engage with him on that basis, and now people have to engage with Trump on this new basis.
But that doesn't mean that a President doesn't have a long-term impact on the nation's foreign reputation. The Iranian revolution was decades ago and it's still a deeply influential event in the Greater Middle East. That the US will just up and regime change nations they don't like every once in a while isn't just a unique aspect of a select set of US Presidents; there have been enough of them that it now adheres to the US's reputation, and while Bush II might not have been a critical factor in establish that reputation, he nevertheless contributed to it. (As did Obama, arguably, with the Libyan intervention.)
Furthermore, sometimes events are set into motion that are largely irreversible but might also take years to play out. If some nations don't think that the US is a reliable trade partner any more, they'll pursue trade ties with other nations, like China, and just because Kanye is now the President in 2021, that doesn't mean those new trade ties just get dissolved or thrown out. There's no disclaimer clause in RCEP that says that RCEP goes away whenever Trump is no longer President. Or one of the major reasons why the AIIB has seen such support - at least reportedly - is due to the US financial collapse in 2008 as a hedge against another such American financial disaster.
To be realistic, trade policy is something that takes years if not decades to meaningfully shift. There is a limited amount of truly irreversible harm that Trump can do, but there are no guarantees for who the next President(s) will be after Trump either, and "technically reversible" does not mean "will be reversed". History generally moves on tides and currents, rather than abrupt tsunamis, but that a) doesn't mean that tsunamis don't happen, and b) doesn't mean that one event can't start a tide or cause one to reach an overflow (tipping) point.
Edit: And c) Trump might just be the crest of a wave. Foreign nations are aware that the US is a democracy. President Trump isn't an unanticipable aberration in the fabric of the universe. He was elected, and his election says... something... about the US voting populace, which is something that may - or may not - persist even when Trump is no longer President. It's true that President West might destroy the Great Wall of the United States in 2017, but for him to do so, he has to overcome the populist sentiments that put that wall up in the first place. Consider, hypothetically, if Putin dies tomorrow, how much/likely does Russia actually change?
I thought that statement was more about the idea that the US was so powerful that we didn't need to concern ourselves with studying "the way things are" because we could change it, dangerously arrogant, but not about blatantly denying reality, just thinking that we had the power to change the "facts on the ground," as it were. A walking fait accompli.
Somewhat true, since we did singlehandedly shift the balance of power in the Middle East, just not in a way that Bush probably wanted (vastly empowering the Iranian position, for one).
No, it was largely borne by the Iraqis.
What you're talking about hasn't happened yet, though. Nothing Trump has done in the last month comes close to the damage of the Iraq War. I agree he has the potential to do much worse, but this isn't Minority Report.
Yes it has happened. It's like after a bullet has been fired but before it lands. It might hit nothing. It might kill someone. But certainly something has happened.
Trumps actions have more or less destabilized the world order. This is bad. This is super bad. The last time this happened we had a world war over it. And similarly the time before that. Those were not fun times; they make the Iraq war, a war minor in scale and effect to even other conflicts, pale in comparison.
maybe nothing happens. Maybe we get things under control and impeach trump and say "no biggie" guys and they believe us. And we trudge along repairing things. Or maybe no one really trusts us again, they build their own militaries and stop looking for us to lead militarily. They look to China and we all live in the world of Chinese hegemony.
Or maybe they look either to themselves. The clean and orderly treaties we had fail and are replaced by interlocking alliances of convenience. The lack of a hegemon means everyone and their mother gets nukes. Then some backwater duke gets assassinated and the world is a wasteland.
1. Your hypothesis crux relies on Trump being a rational actor, he isn't. And even rational actors can be disastrous with foreign policy.
2. His ambitions and those of his government are showing consistent patterns we saw with W.'s, on steroids and implied to be even more erratic and prone to malicious behavior. Everything his critics have thought about him haven't only been right, but that we've been too conservative with how much destruction he's going to be. Look at what he's done in 3 weeks.
3. Trump's time in office hasn't been boringly dull pre-9/11 like W.'s was, and even if it was how he ran on his campaign has horrific implications for what he's going to be doing when he gets things ramped up. The man has caused international incidents, and concern from the international governing bodies back then, and he's still on that track while in office. Maybe he's more unhinged now, actually, from the stress of not being adored by everyone. We'd be fools to ignore the signs.
4. You don't have to be Tom Cruise to see where Trump's reign is going. Plus, he's surrounded by guys like Bannon, and still is going to bat for Flynn. This should be very concerning when it comes to matters circling Iran. Especially since China's cooled things down on their end, who knows how he's going to react to Mexico down the line?
5. Terrorists organizations have started actively trolling him, he's going to be easy to bait into another Afghanistan or Iraq 2.0. More than W. was.
I agree, those hypotheticals outside of impeachment are bad. Still, what Trump has done in the last month hasn't yet equalled the damage of the Iraq War. That was one of the worst US foreign policy blunders of all time. Of all time. Let's keep things in perspective.
That's hard to really say however. Bad for Iraq and the ME in general? Absolutely.
Bad for the USA and our general standing on the world stage? Ehhh... not so much. We may have gotten a lot of flak for it, but it didn't really shake any foundations or rattle the cages of our allies in any real way.
Trump is causing a massive amount of uncertainty and loss of faith in doing business with the USA as a whole.
It hasn't really caused concrete issues... yet. But the longer team Trump sits in power and is allowed to throw around crap to see what sticks to the walls the longest... the more these issues will solidify.
Allies are not just looking at the USA like we made a mistake... Trump is making countries looking to do business with others instead of us at all... Trump is making allies question whether the USA can even be counted on to defend them, or if we're going to pull out of any NATO style obligations and/or leave them high and dry when the wolves come howling at their doors.
This is an erosion of trust in the USA at such a fundamental level that Iraq, for as big of a mistake and shitshow as it was, just can't even come close to approaching. And this is all within the first month of President Trump.
That is what has people in a panic because this is some serious damage that needs to be shored up before all of those allies wind up in treaties/alliances with other players on the world stage.
China and Russia will not sit idle and let us catch our breath, they are going to be like water seeping into every crack that comes to the surface with US foreign policy that they can reach, and plenty of allies will do the same... Either out of necessity or self interest.
The problem is that cage rattling could be temporary while over four thousand US military dead and many times that wounded is not. Is my point, when responding to this:
Iraq said "OK we are willing to go to war with a minor nation who had issues with our allies before" and also probably "we are willing to learn from our mistakes". Trump has said "you are one fluke election from losing your standing in the world". And so everyone now has to play as if they are.
Once trust is gone so is the easy hegemony. No more network effects. We either have to enforce it or lose it and neither are good for anyone involved.
If...IF! There is a way to put the genie back in the bottle it will not be an easy process. Nor will it be cheap, in money or in lives.
Edit: here is really what you need to know. No friendly foreign nations government considered the potential need to defend against the US or increase military spending to cover for a US that failed to meet its obligations as a result of the Iraq war. It had minimal policy implications except insomuch as the level of support was a domestic issue (and even then lack of support did not produce international repercussions). Trump has started those policy wheels turning.
Edit2: maybe this will make sense.
Have you ever had someone threaten you? I mean seriously threaten; credibly. If you have you probably know that there isn't really any going back from that. Even if the threat isn't carried out you can't go along like it never happened. Trump more or less just threatened to burn down the house everyone was living in.
Why wouldn't you have a plan
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
In much the same way I don't have a plan for surviving nuclear war.
Some things are too much up to stupid dumb luck to be worth bothering with reasonably mitigating.
Pretty sure they have plans, the US military has theoretical plans for zombie plagues!
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/16/politics/pentagon-zombie-apocalypse/
its not about having a plan, it's about enacting it (and well with foreign policy you wouldn't, things change too fast to have a specific policy proposal ready for if the US decides it's going to dumb).
Additionally plans take time to enact and that is a problem. No one can just turn a switch and be ready for the post hegemony world.
Which is why I'm so insistent on the EU cutting every goddamn deal with the US there is (STOP FUCKING FEEDING SURVEILLANCE OF PRIVATE CITIZENS TO THE GODDAMN NSA, WITHOUT ANYTHING IN RETURN!!! :mad:). "Democratic victories" will be increasingly unlikely in the coming years anyhow. I think GOP rule will be the american default in the coming decades and the rest of the world is gonna have to learn to deal with that.
Yup, gonna be difficult to turn back the clock with the GOP in full power right now.
Well yes actually, there was very much that suggestion. It caused a massive amount of resentment.
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/11/06/gen.attack.on.terror/
Short answer, yes.
Long answer. A bigger yes.
China isn't exactly a friendly smiling neighbor. And not only would it keep all the same EU issues on the table RE: A super power with influence and direct access to countries right on Russia's border... but now that super power would be China, who is a direct neighbor of Russia themselves.
If you think Putin was paranoid and unreasonable about the USA having NATO influence at their door, what would he do when he was effectively surrounded by China?
FREEDOM! fries
If we ever put the genie back in the bottle I think there is real cause and reason to reform our constitution and voting system to make it impervious to the kind of one-party rule that the GOP has been pulling off. This election has clearly demonstrated that every 4 years our allies could be working with a very different US and that does irreparable harm to our ability to negotiate (hence why Flynn talking to Russia about new sanctions is such a huge fucking issue).
Unfortunately a lot of this requires the GOP to recognize what they've become and step back from it, which I highly doubt. I'm sure they'd love one party rule. They've seen democrats as an illegitimate party for the majority of the 20th century, and that won't change anytime soon.
China doesn't have much ability to project force--yet. But they've been working hard over the last 10 years to improve that, and they'll continue to improve it.
It is unlikely in the near-medium term that they'll become a world power militarily. They're mainly concerned with keeping their sea lanes open and having allies on their borders. They only have one foreign base so far, and getting the sort of defense agreements necessary to build more takes time, politics, diplomacy, and a lot of palm-greasing. So don't expect that to change dramatically unless they decide it's in their best interests, they can afford it, and the world order changes dramatically (the latter of which we may well see).
All in all this means that China and Europe are more about the trade deals and "enemy of my enemy is my friend" vs. Russia than that we'll ever see Chinese CVBGs making port in France.
This is an excellent article regarding this topic and I recommend reading it.
We will violate the Geneva Convention and torture people. We might target innocents for purposeful killings (which is distinct from collateral damage) as policy set at the highest levels. Turning a blind eye and hoping for the best isn't a good policy, but an understandable one in response to events under Bush the Lesser. Now? It is just choosing willful blindness. And a lot of foreign governments aren't going to be as willing. Nor will they make the assumption that these are unique aberrations. This is who we are now. And who we will continue to be, depending on a coin flip every four years. You can't unring that bell.
The bolded part is the important bit for our future.
We can unring that bell to some extent, but the time period for that is dwindling rapidly.
We've still done damage, but if we outed Trump and made sure that we put in protections from this kind of mess from happening again in the future... it would still be unsettling what happened, but it would ultimately be smoothed over given some time.
But if we stay the course we are on? Yeah, the bolded part is our future. No one is going to want to rely on a bipolar nuclear super power for their countries continued well being (or even existence).
Yeah, and the French government did not care (from Wikipedia):
Also, that article is from November 2001. It's in reference to 9/11 and Afghanistan, not Iraq, and France participated in Afghanistan, because the US invoked Article 5. Double also, calling it resentment or alienation is misleading; various European nations may have thought the invasion of Iraq was stupid and disliked the decision, but that doesn't mean that it caused visceral emotional responses towards the very relationship itself. Not agreeing with/approving of something an ally does does not necessarily imply questioning the alliance itself.
There were no reports that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs were concerned about the status of NATO and its alliance with the US. I can promise you I never joked about Canadian Anschluss during the entire 8 years of Bush's administration.
Everybody understood what Bush meant and understood his intentions. His message and his people's messages and the State Department's messages were coordinated and sensible and clearly defined a particular outlook on the world that, while perhaps asshatty and threatening to some nations, did not represent a direct threat to Western interests. Nobody understands what the fuck Trump means ever, so they're all obliged to prepare contingencies and hedge.
I'd definitely classify the Iraq war as a sort of political capital "we've had your backs this whole time, so help us do this one thing even though it's stupid" thing. It certainly harmed world opinion of the U.S., but it was entirely within the bounds of existing relationships.
It took hold in quite a few places too. It made Canadian politics nastier for awhile and led to the surreality of "we should have joined this war to placate Washington" being one of the core issues in he 2004 election, with that sort of thinking being a major chunk of half the spectrum's politics here since.
Not that it isn't terrifying and horrible anyhow, of course. It's pretty rough when the nicest thing you can say is "at least he's not quite literally Hitler."
It also took 30-40 bloody years for that to happen. We're not at that point yet, but if the damage can last half a lifetime...
Did it survive GWB just fine? Or did it heal wrong? Does it open up again at the slightest impact?
Germany "bounced back" off the ground after being stomped into it by greater military forces. Let's see how that works out for the U.S.
The Holocaust was 80 years ago.
Edit: Still, it's healthy to keep in mind this won't be completely permanent. If nothing else, the rise of AI and increased automation during these next few decades will kill the Republican party or change it so much it'll be unrecognizable.
The equivalent today would be removing every elected republican from office or appointment and banning anyone with said affiliation from ever attaining power again.