America spent 80 years building its power through cooperation. Trump and the Republicans have destroyed that. They now use military force, economic coercion, and threats to compel other countries to obey. The same tactics Russia has used for generations. (Reuters)
After World War II, the United States drove the establishment of the United Nations, NATO, international financial institutions, and the modern global trading system. (U.S. Department of State; U.S. Department of State; World Bank)
America built alliances, opened markets, and gave other countries economic and security reasons to cooperate. American businesses gained customers, American workers gained jobs, and American influence expanded. America became the richest and most powerful nation in the world, by a very large margin.
America also invaded countries, overthrew governments, and violated the rules it helped establish. But trade, diplomacy, and international institutions remained central to American power.
Trump and the Republicans have ended that. They have turned the U.S. into an aggressor nation, similar to Russia, and, like Russia, the U.S. will lose power and become poorer.
Trump’s Iran war is a case study. In 2015, Obama, five major powers, and several other nations negotiated an agreement ending Iran’s nuclear bomb program, restricting its entire nuclear program, and establishing international inspections. (U.S. Department of State)
Trump abandoned that agreement in 2018, and in February 2026, American and Israeli forces carried out a sneak attack on Iran. The resulting war disrupted global energy supplies, drove up fuel prices, damaged the American economy, weakened its military, alienated its allies, and put Iran in a stronger position. (U.S. Department of State; Reuters; Reuters; Reuters)
We see the same pattern with Trump’s handling of NATO, relations with Canada, and every other friendly nation, global institutions, and international diplomacy in general. (Reuters; Reuters)
The results are predictable. America spent decades building the global system and strong alliances. Trump and the Republicans are tearing them apart, and America’s former partners are fighting back. In less than 2 years, Trump and the Republicans have made the U.S. an adversary of most nations. American allies (what’s left of the alliance) are retaliating with tariffs on American goods and building trading and alliance networks that specifically exclude the U.S. Diplomacy works around America, and international institutions look to China for funding and stability. (Reuters; Reuters; Pew Research Center)
What happens to the U.S. as it loses allies?
it is left out of trade agreements
becomes diplomatically isolated
its military weakens
it becomes poorer.
We know because it’s what happens to all modern nations that choose coercion instead of cooperation: they become weaker, poorer nations that play a decreasing role in global affairs.
This is exactly what’s happening now to the U.S. because Trump and the Republicans have chosen to put the U.S. on the Russian path of coercion, aggression, weakness, and poverty.
The Trump Republican regime’s pivot from cooperation to coercion will destroy America.
Friday’s Edition will look at Russia and the cultural drivers behind its generations of coercive action.
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Western analysts still make the fatal mistake of treating the Houthis like an ordinary Iranian proxy.
They aren't. They’re a 350,000-strong hybrid syndicate that operates almost identically to a transnational drug cartel:
• Co-opting state telecom for digital surveillance and money laundering
• Running billion-dollar fuel smuggling networks
• Shaking down commercial shipping for up to $180M/month in "safe passage"
By burning through 86% of Saudi Arabia's Patriot interceptors in 38 days and shuttering Riyadh’s airport, they are systematically choking the life out of Vision 2030. The House of Saud isn't facing a conventional military threat—it's bleeding out against an asymmetric war machine that conventional strikes cannot dismantle.
Our latest deep dive breaks down the cartel mechanics and the structural defense failure in the Gulf:
https://triggledger.substack.com/p/the-cartel-on-the-red-sea-how-the?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=8gc1qf
Way, thank you so much for writing this article, you made a concise, summation of the consequences, with valid identification of what it modelled and how gross corruption of the political, the minds of the electorate, institutions and corporate entities undid 80 years of civilizations progress.
The bulwark always leaked, but the rot and corrosion kept getting patched over after each pattern of abuse pushed the norms too far. However the patches were laid bare and weakened as soon as people forgot the pain. Like a glacial lake, the melt was hidden until the dam burst. The logarithm of self destruction was seeded long ago, it only felt sudden by those, who cared not to notice. The flood of consequences is only beginning to be felt, and it will only get worse, for the US and the world, from here. Can the damage be arrested? Perhaps, but it will not be easy, but it will never return to what was possible before. America broke it but no longer has the resources to fix it. We are no where near the bottom, the structural failure is ongoing, the water is still rising and has a long way to get to the sea.
Steve Ryan was correct in a general, long arc of history, way, yet he is not being fair to the correct focus of the article and to the progress that was made, largely through American leadership in the post Second World War period. America did many bad things—others did much much worse—but America was not all bad. It has risen to the occasion, many times, to provide leadership and resources in ways few-to-none have have been able to do before. However, in the end, it failed too many times in the ways that matter most, that is, to turn away from systemic corruption and greed. It is not that others are and have been worse, it is that it’s leadership on the global stage is gone. Right now the only leadership it provides is a race to the bottom. Saying, “sir do you have no shame?” It worked once, twice if you include Nixon, but without addressing the fundamental flaws in the system it served less as a cautionary tail than as a quick blueprint for the corrupt, who have no shame, to take and hold power and dismantle the great American experiment. I would argue that the United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution were the pinnacle of human achievement in founding and guiding a country. However these where not backed up by the legal structure to fill the gaps where decency and competence were assumed. Nature may hate a vacuum, but corruption creeps in through the shadows and holes of a legislative vacuum.
One Last Thing:
Way Yuh, one last thing, please correct the bullet point:
• becomes dimplocially isolated
I think you meant to say:
• becomes dimplocially isolated