We are quick to freeze bank accounts, homes, boats, planes etc., even private citizens property, restrict trade, force others to restrict trade in all aspects, leverage our dollar, limit the movement of people, censor...
But then we warn others of the huge threat of being dependent on Russian gas because the Russians may leverage this against one in the future if there is disagreement.
The problem is that we're behaving like assholes. We like to talk about these high and noble ideas, but reality has it that others have figured us out.
We're willing to use military force in furthering our economic interests, we are expansionist, we will subvert governments, fuel insurrections, cause uprisings, propagandize the crap out of someone, we kidnap, torture, assassinate, don't follow our own laws nor hold to our promises, outright lie and cheat, prop up dictators, are entirely NOT transparent. But we'll talk a lot about democracy, freedom, human rights, bla bla bla.
***Folks don't trust us, and many see us as the big bully on the playground, even though the common Joe in the US don't see it that way. After the end of the Cold War we were left as the only remaining worlds superpower. We have become ever more brazen in what we're willing to do to achieve our political goals and many have had enough or are frankly afraid. Even our neighbors and NAFTA members like Mexico are getting pissed. Only in our own mind are we still the knight in silver armor defending democracy and freedom, but for the rest of the world, to include India, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa, Serbia, Belarus, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua (most of the worlds population and landmass)... “we” are the pariah.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream We are everything we accuse the Russians of being.
https://www.dw.com/en/kidnapped-by-the-cia-the-case-of-khaled-el-masri/a-61205120
Since our dominance extends into the realm of news media, big tech (search engines, social media, www infrastructure), we can control the narrative for the most part in our own world, leading to the dichotomy between how the average American sees how we behave and how the rest of the world sees us.
Yeah, you love Russia, we get it.
Well said.
When Americans huff and puff about “foreign election interference” in US elections, the rest of the world just laughs.
The USA big vulnerability is the potential fall of the $US as the international currency.
Demand for dollars from that allows for massive deficits with low inflation and interest rates, as well as massive printing whenever there is a financial crisis, without inflation or devaluation.
If that were ever to come to an end, the USA just becomes a “post-industrial” country with massive trade an budget deficits, and a lot of enemies who will go out of their way to add whatever damage they can.
If the US dollar collapses, the DC Globohomo Regime goes with it, and then anything is possible.
A huge part of the problem is that after the wall collapsed and the “winds of change” were blowing eastward, then really, NATO should have been shrunk in conjunction with the integration of communist bloc into the western world. That didn’t happen.
You can figure out what happened from a cursory glance at the NATO wikiepedia page in the history section:
“In the 1990s, the organization extended its activities into political and humanitarian situations that had not formerly been NATO concerns.[32] “
That says it all. Who would want to pull the plug on a baby-fed, multi-billion dollar organization/alliance?
Basically NATO’s mission became irrelevant so the organization decided to keep it self alive. NATO’s presence was supposed to shrink after the cold-war (assuming both sides had good intentions) but it is still trying to expand.
You don’t think China and Russia aren’t doing the same bullying the US does?
Sure, we invade countries in order to annex their territory. Okay