I’m thinking it’s more about how much of the abuse you can tolerate. It’s not like the US has been all that hesitant to abuse our allies in the past. It’s more like our allies have previously been able to convince themselves that the benefits outweighed the costs.

I think you’re right. The world has accepted, or at least tolerated US hegemonic dominance because it worked well enough, but that doesn’t mean it was ideal. Far from it, for many countries. It’s not like the world was given a choice, really. Or, more accurately, the world’s choices were severely limited. Perhaps a majority of the world’s countries just saw US hegemony as the least bad option. But even those countries that didn’t agree that it was the least bad option, what were they supposed to do about it?

“You cannot put the genie back into the bottle,” Schelde said. “Things might get better and more calm a few months down the road, and Trump, he can’t be reelected, and the next president might be somewhat different,” Schelde said. “But what comes then in five, six, 10 years? I think there’s a strong realization across Europe that we need to be able to stand on our own feet.”

This is truly the silver lining in all of this. The world, especially Europe, has been far too complacent about continued US hegemonic dominance. They figured that the world was fine under US control, because US leadership was generally capable and trustworthy enough. But the thing about that kind of concentration of power is it’s not a matter of if that power will be abused, it’s only a matter of when.

The US has proven that we can no longer be counted on to rule competently and ethically enough. That doesn’t mean it’s time to replace US hegemony with another hegemonic order, it’s time for true, international democracy. It’s time for a democratic, rules based order.

YOU don’t give a fuck what people believe. You. Science has nothing to do with it. Science isn’t a person, it doesn’t have the capacity for indifference. Science is a method, a process, a set of tools. Science isn’t a gotcha to your political or ideological opponents. If you want to say that you don’t care what people believe, fine (that’s still cringe) but leave science out of it.

Yeah stuff like this is cringe.

Science isn’t a culture or a belief system, nor is it a substitute for those things. Science isn’t an aesthetic or a political or group ideology.

I really think this all comes down to a belief that Trump and many Americans hold, that oil is irreplaceable. They have convinced themselves, or have been convinced by others, that civilizations can’t exist without oil, and fossil fuels more broadly. Because of this belief, they’re betting hard on oil and gas. They want to take control of as much of the world’s remaining oil reserves as possible, both to secure oil for ourselves but also to restrict access to adversaries, like China.

But this belief is wrong. Civilizations can exist without fossil fuels, or at least with very minimal fossil fuel use, especially for energy. Fossil fuels are very inefficient and nonrenewable, in addition to being highly polluting. Renewables, like solar and wind, are much more efficient, especially for electricity generation. To generate electricity with fossil fuels, you have to extract the material from the ground, refine it, transport it, then burn it to boil water to generate steam to turn a turbine to generate the electricity. There are a lot of steps there, and a lot of the energy is lost in the process. With solar and wind, electricity is generated at the source. It’s true that solar panels and wind turbines are not very efficient at turning the wind and sunlight into electricity, but once the electricity is generated, all you have to do is transmit it to where it is either stored or used. Some energy is lost in transmission, but that’s true of electricity generated from fossil fuels, too. Renewables are simply more efficient. And, as the name implies, they are renewable. The sun will continue to shine and the wind will continue to blow for a very long time.

So as the world wakes up this realization, the world will continue to transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. That will reduce the demand for fossil fuels. The oil companies know this, that’s why they’re not in any great hurry to go and spend billions of dollars to significantly increase oil production. If they dramatically increase oil production, but the overall demand for oil doesn’t also increase significantly, the price for their product will fall. They don’t want to sell their product for less money, because that will reduce their profits. Lowering the price of oil sounds great to consumers of the product, who want lower gas and diesel prices, but the companies selling it don’t want that. Companies want to sell their product for the highest price possible, so they can maximize their profit.

The US is betting on a fossil fuel future, but we’re going to lose that bet. We’ve convinced ourselves, or have been convinced, that oil especially is irreplaceable and that renewables/electrification are a scam. We’re wrong. An electrified world powered primarily by renewables is the future. The longer we continue down this misguided path, the further behind the rest of the world we will fall.

Just because it’s a bad strategy doesn’t mean they won’t try it. In trying to figure out this administration’s next moves, using faulty logic might actually help. Kind of a, “if I were an idiot, what would I do,” sort of thing.

Iran could be our next target. Trump wants to cut off oil supplies to China. China does import much of their oil from Russia and Saudi Arabia, in addition to Iran and Iraq (Chinese oil imports from Venezuela had been increasing recently), and I’m not sure how they expect to stop oil from flowing to China from Russia and Saudi Arabia, but what is clear is they view oil as power and they want to weaken China by targeting their oil supplies.

Edit: Could this all be to build up our oil reserves, and restrict China from building up their reserves, in preparation for an eventual war with China?

There’s a theory that I’ve seen floating around the Internet for years now that the US could easily defeat China in a war by just cutting off their supply of oil. Maybe that’s our plan.

Unconfirmed reports to the Canary suggest that the US is withdrawing non-essential staff from its embassies in both Lebanon and Israel.

I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up being true, but I’ll wait for confirmation.

He’s going to do whatever he thinks he can get away with.

Are the other of the nations of the world really so helpless? Hopeless? If you want to roll over and die, that’s up to you, but if it were me, I would fight to the death, even and especially if it were a lost cause. I mean, look at the guerilla fighters who fought back against the mighty US in Vietnam or Iraq. They gave the US hell and they sure didn’t have trillions of dollars to work with. Sure, the guerilla fighters lost a lot, but they made damn certain that America didn’t “win.”

If you have a better idea, let’s hear it.

A coalition of nations that are opposed to imperialism needs to be formed. Only a world united against imperialism can stop these imperialist powers.

Exactly. The majority aren’t going to take action against something that isn’t on their radar. The majority may just be along for the ride, but that doesn’t change the destination.

Some Americans absolutely want this. But, yes, it’s probably not a majority. Of course, I don’t think the majority can, or will, do anything about it.

The world needs to take the threat of the US very, very seriously. Don’t assume that upcoming US elections will fix the problem. There’s no guarantee those elections will even take place. Take steps to protect yourselves now.

I guess the way I understood the original intent was that we were attempting to set up a bulwark against further expansion from European colonialism.

That was the original intent. That is absolutely true. But the doctrine has evolved or expanded since. One major addition was the Roosevelt Corollary, right around the turn of the 20th century.

The corollary states that the United States could intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American countries if they committed flagrant wrongdoings that “loosened the ties of civilized society.”

Eventually, the “wrongdoings” came to include anything related to the “spread of communism.”

I don’t think the average American citizen wants hemispheric domination.

That’s probably true, but some Americans absolutely do want that, and many of those people are a part of Trump’s political coalition. This new enhanced version of the Roosevelt Corollary is sometimes called the “Donroe Doctrine” or the “Trump Corollary.”

Your sentence about control over the Western hemisphere implies that the majority of Americans are pro-imperialist.

Aren’t they?

The Monroe doctrine has evolved since 1823. It has been invoked or used as inspiration or justification for US involvement, solicited or unsolicited, in the political and economic affairs of several countries in Central and South America, especially those with socialist governments.

Even major European allies, more cautious and measured in tone, carefully signaled concern about the operation’s legality while largely aligning with the U.S. on policy.

Grow a pair, Europe.

Is the edict not the Monroe doctrine? Or some modern iteration of it?