That was only a matter of time. First, there was Andrei Amalrik’s book, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? (1970), which showed the cracks in the system; then there was West Berlin, which, smack-dab in the middle of a Communist country, showed how freedom from state control actually worked, with a better standard of living, and none of the “yes, things are tough now, but we’re building socialism, just be patient, we’ll get there, it’ll be great” sort of shit that came out of Moscow and that East Berlin went along with. Well, it’s not like East Berliners had a choice.
Did you miss Xi removing the term limits on his position?
The Chinese public have just about zero input on their government’s actions. They certainly have zero input on major actions. But even their government’s upper echelons recognize that upsetting the current applecart would also upset their Le Grand Buffet. The general public will not vote them out–because, of course, there aren’t any real elections–but mainland China is not immune to mass protests. And that won’t be good for the economy.
The talking point of annexing Taiwan is still mostly for domestic consumption and, to an extent, keeping the independence movement on Taiwan on that government’s radar to keep it in check and not upset the aforementioned apple carts and Les Grands Buffets.
It’s always convenient to have an outside entity to blame for the bad things, isn’t it? What we’re seeing here.
Regarding the DDR: wasn’t it rather well known since the beginning of the Cold War that the USSR was financially supporting its “client” states?
That sounds remarkably like the argument that the Republicans would never really overturn Roe vrs Wade because it was too useful politically. But…they did it anyway.
“They’d never be crazy enough to actually do that” isn’t a statement that has a history of being accurate.
Another issue which I just remembered is North Korea. If the PRC gets involved in a takeover of Taiwan, that would necessarily involve a reduction of funds to North Korea. You might recall that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major support of that government. It’s gone now, obviously, so China is the rich uncle for the moment. If China closes its purse, North Korea will be in a dire situation. And China will be in no position itself to deal with the millions of refugees which may flood over the border.
Status quo is the name of the game and it’s a long game.
The key difference here, I think, is Roe v. Wade was turned over because it’s good for getting votes for Republicans. China’s not even pretending to have voting, just pretending to have a parliament, so they don’t have to worry about doing something to garner votes.
Right now, China is facing some economic issues, the biggie is the real estate bubble. Their government’s a tad too occupied with that to be launching an expensive and useless attempt at a takeover that they already know will not work and will further exacerbate the economic situation on the mainland. And as evil as they are, they’re not as stupid as Trump. That’s pretty obvious with their responses to his inane tariff stunts.
It was turned over because after decades of propaganda, it stopped being a ploy and became a genuine goal. That’s what tends to happen with long term propaganda campaigns; it stops being propaganda and becomes a general belief or goal.
Yes, I know: I was there, that was the point. We were really privileged in West Berlin, and many of us knew it and enjoyed it. And most believed it would last forever. Well, it couldn’t. Ah, to be young again… good times.
It was complicated. Per saldo I would say the USSR drained more ressources from the Warsaw Pact States, in particular the GDR, than it pumped into them. And what it gave was mostly military equipment.
Interestingly, it was Franz-Joseph Strauß, a very conservative Bavarian politician, who gave the GDR a credit line over one billion D-Marks in 1983, which seemed surprising at the time.
Aye, somehow I did and at the same time, not surprised.
I reckon that just gives him more time before “retirement” before he takes Taiwan and to me explains why some action hasn’t commenced yet.
If China can basically get the benefits of Taiwan being so close, perhaps he has much less reason to need it any more than Australia should buy into Hegseth’s threat of “possible and imminent” invasion by China.
Of the so-called Warsaw-pact countries whom I suppose would be the “core Soviet Sattelite States”: East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania & Bulgaria it was absolutely known these countries were in the Soviet influence or client states and I’m not sure to what extent Putin would like at least some pieces of them back.
My wife from Lenningrad (of course now again St. Petersburg) was able to travel to Ukraine and the Black Sea (and does recall Mariupol - perhaps not in same way I do, as it was a good testing port in a mapping application I made - and I’ve still not changed its Country)
Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR) and the Baltics tried to keep some level of nationalism/statehood, as of course did Russia. Some say it was a drunken Khrushchev (born near the border of Ukraine and Russia) who gifted Crimea back to Ukraine in 1954, yet at the time that probably was page 14 news in the New York Times. Yet it turns out to have been a big mistake primarily as Sevastopol was being “rented” for (I dunno, 100 rubles a year) and that lease was like 1,000 years yet it was in Ukraine. And following the various color revolutions in Europe in the last 15 years or so, there was a clear sense that the UK and USA were eyeing Sevastopol as a really convenient port they might like.
And by then Ukraine was its own country (though they gave up their nukes in promise for protection from invasion), Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were their own countries yet they retained a large number (generally adjacent to Russia) of “ethnic Russians” and were generally despised and many of them did not really have travel rights as they had cruddy “gray passports” that may have well said “State Less”. And Putin has much the same reasons to invade and take those Eastern pieces as he did Ukraine.
Why Putin is dicking around on the Finnish border I’ve no clue. I’d have expected if he wanted to test East-NATO’s article 5 (Trump has made it pretty clear that the non-Atlantic bordering NATO states are on their own or Europe’s problem) it’d be one or all of them.
Leaving out a bunch of third-world countries who at least were Soviet aligned and likely received funding (some in Africa, some in Southeast Asia) it too was no secret who was at least financially (if not willing to do anything military) from the USSR.
I guess it would depend on how you define “impending” and “collapse.” I’d agree that the US is too wealthy to completely disintegrate/fail to be a significant global player, at any time in the short term - say 10-20 years. But I DEFINITELY see its relative power waning. For some time it has been the sole superpower both militarily and economically. I could see it rather quickly becoming - say - one of the top 5, compared to, perhaps, the EU, China, India… If that occurs, I could imagine the US having to cede much of its current “influence” in countless matters.
Beyond 20 years, I would hedge any bets. Heck, we are only 250 years old. 160 years ago we almost tore ourselves in 2. I could imagine that, if the next couple of elections/Congresses/administrations do not change our current path significantly, that there might be powerful forces leading to some fragmentation of the US. Just saying - over the course of history, huge changes have happened to even the strongest of empires over time. No reason to believe the US will be “exceptional” in this respect.
The Unites States influence ought not be quoted yet that’s probably more a semantic argument.
In Military Power the USA is unmatched yet perhaps unchallenged (offensively). 750+ military bases in 80+ countries. China has one. Due to the Atlantic and Pacific and US Navy (particularly submarines) are un-invadeable.
Economically there are growing rivals, yet the tech giants (Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Google) are in the USA. And still pretty strong though facing rivals in tech investment in stuff like AI.
The first Iraq war was partially due to Saddam Hussein threatening to abandon the petro-dollar. Changing that would put a lot of hurt on the USA economically. Thus the threats to BRICS countries.
Politically & Diplomatically, there things suddenly (is that close enough an antonym for “imminently”?) crumbled, particularly the latter. The power (electricity) is still on at the UN yet it’s become irrelevant except Russia and China still block a lot of moves. And Trump has severed NATO into the America-might-give-a-damn part and the Europe’s-problem-part.
The US still has Hollywood, Disney and the various Disneyland sort of places. Manhattan itself still has two tall old art-deco buildings and one ugly monststrosity of a building that’s 1/3 hollow up top ({insert Trump intelligence joke here})
Yet outside of nukes, the USA should still be a force to be reckoned with (hey the UK still is) in 100 years.
Maybe that’s where I got the idea. I admit, not being an extreme fan, Star Trek’s episodes kind of merge together in my mind.
One would hope the receiving program would be smart enough to fill the hole with pancreas-stuff. I mean, transmission glitches are inevitable. Imagine arriving with 3cm of your left arm missing.
“Somebody get that, please, I’m gonna staunch this and head for sick bay.”
I’d just like to share I saw online that Mexico is renaming the Liberty Bell to the Taco Bell.
Seems like fair play.
The quotes were simply intended to indicate that - as you responded - influence could be defined in different ways.
Thanks for the interesting response.
I wonder what developments might change the US’ military and economic position - and how quickly? How willing is the US to use its military - say - against China’s territorial expansion? Or to resolve international disputes?
Economically - would it be possible that tech giants might seek harbor elsewhere? Or that, in exchange for remaining in the US, they elicit benefit that cause undesirable social dynamics within the US?
I wonder what it would look like - if the US remained at the top economically and militarily, but not politically and/or diplomatically. Wouldn’t a reduction in political/diplomatic strength potentially endanger the economic/military prominence? One factor I’m curious about is what happens in Africa and Asia if the US ceases to “invest” in those areas, and those countries turn to China/India/themselves for assistance/markets/allies…
You can be the strongest, baddest kid on the playground. But if all the other kids just agree to ignore/avoid you, your opportunities to be a bully decrease…
As for the US militarily, if the regimen keeps on its path and removes “DEI” (read: non-white non-males) from tech and defense firms, let alone from active military, then eventually the military will just fail to innovate, to keep up, and our first-rate military will be wiped out like Iraq’s vaunted “4th best military in the world” in the Gulf War.
Imagine if our weapons work as well as current Musk space launches. Spontaneous rapid disassembly is supposed to happen to the enemy, not your own weapons.
Yes, it would, particularly the military part. A big factor in the US ability to project force anywhere in the world is the number of overseas bases you have. If the US loses a significant part of its diplomatic power, how many of those bases will be closed by their host countries? Lose enough of them, and you lose too much of your power projection, and that leads to a downward cycle. As the US weakens, even more countries will start to question why they have US bases on their land, and you maybe start to lose them as well.
With things like Carrier Strike Groups, the US will always have some ability to strike most places in the world, but those alone won’t be anywhere near what you have now, and if you have to stage any missions out of the continental United States, that puts much greater fundamental limits on what you can do when you get where you’re going.
I spoke w/ an ER physician over the weekend who had just returned from a conference in Wuhan China. His comment was that we will not even know how much scientific, medical, and intellectual development/achievements we will have lost over the next 5+ years as a result of labs being closed, studies being shut down, and students simply training elsewhere or in other fields.
I thought that a chilling - tho likely probably - description.
It is to me, what makes “America First” Hegemony which this administration projects or:
And those sorts of changes, such as how quickly the USA has lost credibility in Diplomacy and the “with us or against us” mentality sets in, DEI and whatever worse things it becomes, and indeed, as Horatius said, if the US forces are no longer welcome in all those nations and places I mentioned, that would have the tendency to snowball. If Australia made Sydney and Brisbane unavailable to the US Navy, maybe Singapore (I’m assuming the US Navy can go there) and many others will follow suit and a real danger is if some of them welcome China.
Iran has been a bit quiet, yet if they somehow come into conflict with Israel and the US has to get involved, I don’t know how lightly you can take Iran’s significant Air Force and a Normandy kind of landing to take them on militarily will cost the US many lives. I don’t know where Saudi Arabia fits in.
As for tech & production in the USA, the big four need to stay at the top of their game and absolutely have to remain primarily based in the US. In my 50+ years I recall when almost all cars and TV’s were made in America and Japanese stuff was considered inferior. Now almost everything electronic comes from Asia and though I’m currently in the UK and only owned Chevy’s and Ford’s in the USA, the same 200,000+ mile reputation Honda and Nissan (eta: Forgot Toyota as they make my car) has is well known here. And most Ford’s and Chevy’s in the USA are partly made in Mexico and Canada (which Trump’s economic “team” clearly didn’t know as he had to back off on a lot of tarrifs). Maybe some cars are made in Detroit. None entirely (outside I reckon, of low volume race cars like the Mustang-R).
To my recollection, much of this was predicted by economists and the extent the democrats supported or tried to vote against it, I cannot say.
The USA is certainly in danger of either a gradual or precipitous fall. Kinda like the gradual fall in domestic production -vs- lack of diplomatic credibility. The latter (under a new administration) can perhaps recover. I reckon most of those manufacturing jobs are gone forever so the USA may become (again, under another administration) a welcoming place for tourists to visit or the place with the coolest planes, most carrier forces and submarines.
I really don’t think the diplomatic reputation can revover. Allies will welcome and deal with a new administration, but the friendship and trust that really made those relationships work is gone for good.
In practical terms, that may not make much difference, but it just makes me very sad.
And they will make new relationships with deals and agreements that they actually KEEP. Something that Trump can’t do and has destroyed.
Chalk up another win for the orange menace.
WRT the first - I often muse how much the US military is a paper tiger. Over the past several decades, we certainly have not gotten ito a serious shooting conflict with anyone anywhere near our weight class. Instead, we pick opponents we can easily beat up, like Iraq, Libya. or Panama… Or - a braindead miscalculation of bringing democracy to Afghanistan. 
The US seems to wish to exert influence worldwide, but seems especially loath to risk bloodshed of American troops. I’m not urging participation in more armed conflicts, just wondering how much you can THREATEN how often, with such threats remaining credible.
WRT the big 4 - I assume you are talking tech? As you mention - with so much manufacturing taking place elsewhere, if restrictions on international workers/students, I wonder how long it will remain profitable for them to stay stateside. Because as soon as they perceive it in their best interest to go elsewhere, they will. Also, if you add in countries like China not respecting US patents/intellectual property, I wonder how much of the market “cloned” goods will take.
Gonna be interesting times indeed. Personally, I don’t feel the US needs to be the sole superpower in all respects. I would welcome a more multinational arrangement. But we don’t have to get there by just blindly pissing away whatever advantages we might have, and exerting no influence over the resulting relationships.