The US has overall amazing projection generally, be it propaganda, military, culture, etc. I find it funny, looking back a couple years ago, that people were outright dismissing American hegemony but it looks alive and well today imo.
The US capitalized on the whole "US has declining global influence" meme* and used it to lay the groundwork for even more global influence. A real "Heads we win; tails you lose" sort of operation.
*This is probably true in some areas but the opposite in others - our influence simply shifted.
Seems to me shifting the narrative to an emerging 'multi-polar' world from the 'uni-polar' US hegemony might solidify alliances more than they otherwise would have been. Kinda like during the cold war you were on one team or another, no trying to play multiple sides.
> Kinda like during the cold war you were on one team or another, no trying to play multiple sides.
Tangential to your comment, but in fact there was another path, spearheaded by, among others, India. It's where we get the term "third world", which became shorthand for "developing" because basically no developed countries joined this "third world" movement ("first world" being the so-called West, "second" being the Soviets).
Shifting to a multi-polar that in essence agrees to the best possible outcome, even as we explore it, seems perfectly within the interests of all. Such an alliance can be more stable and productive while guarding against misuse of the single point of control.
> a multi-polar that in essence agrees to the best possible outcome, even as we explore it, seems perfectly within the interests of all
Multi-polarity is generally code for regional hegemony. That's great if you're the regional hegemon. Not so much if you're the hegemon's neighbor.
America is a maritime power. These (think: Carthage, Venice, Portugal, the Dutch and Britain; counterfactual: Japan) have historically relied on trade, and trading outposts, to project power. As such, they're a natural friend of small countries resisting regional hegemony.
This is the exact opposite of the truth. Multi-polariry always leads to war because there's no hegemon with a monopoly on force. States are in anarchy, after all. In an anarchic situation in the presence of information asymmetries and opposing interests, you always get war. Aside from nukes, unipolarity is the only reason for the unprecedented levels of peace we've seen since 1990. This is realism 101.
World War I and World War II happened because of a multi-polar geopolitical power balance. I’d prefer not to live through World War III, now that nuclear weapons exist.
There is no organization that can prevent one state from going to war with another, I believe a multi-polar world would inevitably lead to a global scale conflict.
Not sure I agree with that in practice, but maybe my understanding of history is flawed.
Was the humanity better off during the Bi-polar era of the Cold War, with continuously escalating nuclear threats and proxy wars vs 1991-2010? What about the multi-polar world of 1919-1938?
While the U.S.'s core strength has always been propaganda (they got Operation Paperclip Nazis to becom American patriots, got the USSR to abolish itself, and the young Russian Federation to destroy itself with its infamous "shock therapy"), China also has quite strong propaganda, especially in Africa. And in Europe, go back 30 years and people still saw Americans as liberators; now, Europeans see it as a corrupt third-world country where people can't afford healthcare.
And while it's true that U.S. cultural "force projection" hasn't weakened; they are being severely squeezed when it comes to trade dominance (https://merchantmachine.co.uk/china-vs-us/) and monetary dominance (see James Rickards' books).
America still has its hegemony, but the notion that it's declining is very much mainstream in academia (https://www.routledge.com/Americas-Allies-and-the-Decline-of...). Worse, its national security institutions have lost credibility among a significant portion of its electorate (MAGA people), and its military hegemony is now opposed by both populist left (pacifists) and populist right (non-interventionists). They're being squeezed both abroad and at home.
All those territories count their people as US citizens (except American Samoa they need to fix that), most have voted to either be part of the US or enjoy popular support of remaining so.
US bases pay rent on land, employ locals, and will instantly shut down if the host country asks them to (after having been invited to enter to begin with). Of course there are cold war era exceptions, but this is the norm:
> The U.S. base at the Bishkek airport had become a regular source of criticism from various Kyrgyz politicians and, with heavy Russian influence, it also closed in 2014.
Hollywood spreads whatever culture they are being paid to spread. I think they are pretty indifferent to whether that is promoting violence, drugs, etc.
I can't tell if you are one of the Chinese agents that seem to be ever present on hackernews nowadays or you are somehow unaware of the very real self-censoring Hollywood does for China
The issue I have is things could be substantially worse than US hegemony - for example there could be a lot more wars/nuclear proliferation if the US failed.
Are you sure? Where do you think the current path of the US is taking its citizens and the rest of the world? Wars are awful and a nuclear war would especially be so, but taking the slow road to an authoritarian state controlled by unknown forces hidden from view has the potential to be much worse. Think of your ideological worldview, now think of those who are the opposite. What happens if that group ends up in control without you even noticing it happening until it becomes a capital offense to point it out?
Wouldn't there be no nuclear proliferation if the U.S. failed? Who designs weapons systems for NATO? The entire nuclear arms race wouldn't have happened if the U.S. didn't use the strategic bombing of citizens as a foreign policy platform 80 years ago.
