I traveled to Asia and Europe in the aftermath of Vietnam, low budget stuff where I put myself out there to be examined by the locals without the insulation of wealth. I can't recall any animosity directed at me by anyone beyond the normal give and take. Today, with a desire to repeat that experience in old age, I find myself questioning the wisdom of such travel. My hope is that this becomes less so as our country slowly recovers from the mass insanity that all to frequently descends on the USA. By then it might be too late, for me at least.
The question for experts is post Trump will the USA actually be a super power or just a big, rich country that is good at blowing things up? You could argue that the USA was the leader of the free world under Biden. Not now. For starters no one wants to follow it.
It's not entirely Trump's fault, but there has been a revolution in military affairs thanks to Putin and the Ukrainians. Events in the Persian Gult showed that when push came to shove the US was not prepared to put its ships in harm's way in the Gulf. They knew their ships could knock down a few drones but not swarms of them. There's only so many anti air missiles you can put on a warship and each costs a lot more than a drone. The Navy was the cheapest safest way of projecting power. Not any more.
Close air support is now done by drones not attack helicopters (that are sitting ducks to cheap drones) and fixed wing aircraft are not cost effective, or even effective at swatting down drones in large numbers. So the USA's military power is nowhere near as fearsome as was the case 5 years ago. Trump and his buffoon of a Secretary of Defense have done nothing to respond to this change.
But the bottom line is that as long as the Republican party fails to strongly repudiate Trump (which I can't see it ever doing) and as long as it remains a realistic chance of wining power in the not too distant future (which seems very likely) no foreign state is going to trust the USA as a reliable long term partner. My guess is the Trump will be the most consequential President in living memory. He single handedly made the USA a non-superpower.
Right you are Marianne. In Australia and the UK when it's clear a leader is driving the party to disaster he can be relatively easily removed by a majority of the governing party that will do this out of a sense of self preservation. But it's nearly impossible to move a toxic elected President in the US. And we've never had one as toxic and monumentally incompetent as Trump.
Those in the governing party these days behave like those who went into the phony phone booth and promised to do what Simon Bar Sinister (i.e. Trump) says.
Our nation is becoming the outcast nation, the equivalent of the kid who eats lunch alone.
At the rate things are going, will other nations band together to nuke us away, like a cancer? And would the US become the cautionary tale like Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities that were so "evil", they were destroyed, and nobody could ever live in those areas again?
That's a bit too gloomy. My analogy would be the world will look upon the USA as a not particularly bright rogue elephant that needs to be managed thoughtfully but is best left alone. But even if it seems rational the calculation will be that it could go troppo in the not distant future.
I traveled to Asia and Europe in the aftermath of Vietnam, low budget stuff where I put myself out there to be examined by the locals without the insulation of wealth. I can't recall any animosity directed at me by anyone beyond the normal give and take. Today, with a desire to repeat that experience in old age, I find myself questioning the wisdom of such travel. My hope is that this becomes less so as our country slowly recovers from the mass insanity that all to frequently descends on the USA. By then it might be too late, for me at least.
The question for experts is post Trump will the USA actually be a super power or just a big, rich country that is good at blowing things up? You could argue that the USA was the leader of the free world under Biden. Not now. For starters no one wants to follow it.
It's not entirely Trump's fault, but there has been a revolution in military affairs thanks to Putin and the Ukrainians. Events in the Persian Gult showed that when push came to shove the US was not prepared to put its ships in harm's way in the Gulf. They knew their ships could knock down a few drones but not swarms of them. There's only so many anti air missiles you can put on a warship and each costs a lot more than a drone. The Navy was the cheapest safest way of projecting power. Not any more.
Close air support is now done by drones not attack helicopters (that are sitting ducks to cheap drones) and fixed wing aircraft are not cost effective, or even effective at swatting down drones in large numbers. So the USA's military power is nowhere near as fearsome as was the case 5 years ago. Trump and his buffoon of a Secretary of Defense have done nothing to respond to this change.
But the bottom line is that as long as the Republican party fails to strongly repudiate Trump (which I can't see it ever doing) and as long as it remains a realistic chance of wining power in the not too distant future (which seems very likely) no foreign state is going to trust the USA as a reliable long term partner. My guess is the Trump will be the most consequential President in living memory. He single handedly made the USA a non-superpower.
To bad we cannot have a recall or a vote of no confidence. Kick him to the curb and restore at least a little trust.
Right you are Marianne. In Australia and the UK when it's clear a leader is driving the party to disaster he can be relatively easily removed by a majority of the governing party that will do this out of a sense of self preservation. But it's nearly impossible to move a toxic elected President in the US. And we've never had one as toxic and monumentally incompetent as Trump.
And our governing party is more of an enabling party who lets "Dear Leader" do as he damn pleases.
Yep, Diane. You even understated matters.
Those in the governing party these days behave like those who went into the phony phone booth and promised to do what Simon Bar Sinister (i.e. Trump) says.
Our nation is becoming the outcast nation, the equivalent of the kid who eats lunch alone.
At the rate things are going, will other nations band together to nuke us away, like a cancer? And would the US become the cautionary tale like Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities that were so "evil", they were destroyed, and nobody could ever live in those areas again?
That's a bit too gloomy. My analogy would be the world will look upon the USA as a not particularly bright rogue elephant that needs to be managed thoughtfully but is best left alone. But even if it seems rational the calculation will be that it could go troppo in the not distant future.