The West Patiently Awaits Its Decline

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/229673/the-west-patiently-awaits-its-decline/

In order to undermine America’s world order, China and Russia are resorting to a strategy from the Cold War. The U.S. is even helping achieve its own destruction through a policy of isolationism.

The West Patiently Awaits Its Decline
Die Welt, Germany
By Clemens Wergin
Translated By Daniel Eck
31 December 2013
Edited by Phillip Shannon

Historians will likely regard last year as the year when the American world order started to crumble. As the political scientist Walter Russell Mead wrote, “Sometime in 2013, we reached a new stage in world history.” Although the order America imposed on Eurasian countries in the wake of the Cold War hasn’t been overridden yet, according to Mead: “From this point on we will have to speak of that situation as contested.”

Francis Fukuyama coined the phrase the “end of history” to refer to the time when the collapse of the Soviet Union finally came to an end. The geopolitics are back.

There are many clues which support this view. They are connected to the growing isolationism of America’s population and politics. For years, President Barack Obama has tried to pick up on the United States’ commitment to global affairs, and he has taken actions that left many U.S. allies from the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere feeling anxious. It also gave some states the opportunity to push back against U.S. influence and undermine the American world order piece by piece, especially because they have been unhappy with the situation for decades.

The most important competitors with the U.S. are China, Russia and Iran. In their own way, they all try to harm American relations and alliances across the world, in particular where the superpower’s reluctance or absent-mindedness allows such harm. The historian and columnist Anne Applebaum writes that there isn’t a return of the Cold War yet, “but the tactics of the old Cold War are now, at the dawn of 2014, suddenly being deployed in a manner not seen since the early 1980s.”

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. It is a mistake to ignore or minimize the damage

done to this country by the Christian Right. Their policies, to which we have been subjected to for 10-20 years, have led to financial, economic and social disasters. Even worse, we managed to convince others to follow suit. Take austerity, for one. Or Uganda, in terms of social policy. Add to that the religious supported invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and we can conclude that our future is fucked. Because of Christianity, at least our local, ultra conservative version of it. No wonder so many christian fundies here fear what Francis is saying across the pond. He puts their lies in better perspective.

[bemildred]

2. It was the year when the government first stopped trying to pretend nothing was wrong.

That's what changed. As soon as the election was over too.

Edit: and then Snowden came along ...