Thursday, September 21, 2023

Incomparable Michael Brenner...

... writes a superb piece: US Can't Deal With Defeat. In which he deconstructs the whole, so called, "strategy": 

A society represented by an entire political class that is not sobered by that prospect rightly can be judged as providing prime facie evidence of being collectively unhinged. Amnesia may serve the purpose of sparing our political elites, and the American populace at large, the acute discomfort of acknowledging mistakes and defeat. However, that success is not matched by an analogous process of memory erasure in other places.The U.S. was fortunate, in the case of Vietnam, that the United States’ dominant position in the world outside of the Soviet Bloc and the PRC allowed it to maintain respect, status and influence.

Things have now changed, though. The U.S. relative strength in all domains is weaker, strong centrifugal forces around the globe are producing a dispersion of power, will and outlook among other states. The BRICs phenomenon is the concrete embodiment of that reality. Hence, the prerogatives of the United States are narrowing, its ability to shape the global system in conformity with its ideas and interests are under mounting challenge, and premiums are being placed on diplomacy of an order that seems beyond its present aptitudes. The U.S. is confounded.

Read the whole thing, it is superb and is one of those flames of academic and human brilliance which manifests itself not unlike a separate piece of charcoal which continues to burn bright in the pile of spent ashes after the steaks have been grilled and guests left the backyard to continue the conversation and eating in the dining room inside the house.

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