[CurlyDave]

...Remember, if the USA steps back as world policeman, it means that someone else steps forward, and the EU is not very freedom-minded.

It is not a given that someone else will step forward.

As I understand it, when the pax Romana petered out, the western world sank into the dark ages. The real reason being that there was no longer a strong leader keeping social order throughout the region. It is perfectly possible that this scenario could repeat, but with the entire world this time, not just Europe.

[DesertRhino]

“The real reason being that there was no longer a strong leader keeping social order throughout the region. It is perfectly possible that this scenario could repeat, but with the entire world this time, not just Europe.”

The difference is that there is no Pax American. It is now constant war with no end in sight, and no social order being enforced. We now roam the world undermining social order. The only place that attacked us 9/11 was Saudis funding a terror group based in Afghanistan.
So we attack everywhere else in the middle east and leave the Saudis alone.
Something insane is going on. Everywhere we have attacked is worse after we have become involved. In 2000 I could be a tourist in Egypt and Libya in safety. I could see Palmyra in Syria. I could have walked the streets of Kiev. A bit more adventurous of a person could have visited Afghanistan and Iraq.

We aren’t enforcing social order.

[Olog-hai]

How is it “not a given”?

What is Red China’s present expansionism about? or Iran’s? Those are the centers of two different permutations of world-domination philosophy. From the beginning of the European Union, its founders always wanted it to be a “third power” to challenge both the US and Russia, too.

The dark ages were a far different era technologically; notwithstanding, it was characterized by steady Islamic expansionism.