I often do not agree with Peter Zeihan, to put it mildly, but he might be more or less right about this, given the Atlantic alliance effectively ended in January 2025, at least de facto if not de jure. It pains me to write that as someone who has been a pro-US Atlanticist my entire life.
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How to end American power?May 4th, 2026 |
 27 comments to How to end American power?Leave a Reply |
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Although there is some truth in the video there is another perspective to be had. We seem to be in the period of chaos between the old guard Global Liberal Elite and the forthcoming National Popular Elite. It is not so much the collapse of the ‘admired’ world order but that the political pendulum swing towards the Global Liberal Elite has reached its limits and is now swinging back towards the National Popular Elite.
As such the ‘death’ of NATO, Trump’s transactional focus, and the USA’s place in the world are merely symptoms. Other ‘collapses’ in the future will happen from the change in the direction of the pendulum swing. I’d suggest that the EU is going to go through major changes or even dissolution. The same with the UN. Goodness knows what China will look like in a few years. More locally will the Conservatives and Labour still be significant parties – and maybe the BBC will be defunded?
I never heard of Peter Zeihan before, but he does not seem to be aware of some political realities, especially when it comes to EUrope (and Ukraine).
For starters, both the current NATO Sec.General (Rutte) and his predecessor (Stoltenberg) are on record saying that Trump has done a lot of good for NATO. Normally, i would not trust members of the Establishment such as Stoltenberg and Rutte, but since they vehemently disagree with the “hardcore Establishment”, they must have pretty good reasons to do so.
And in fact, good reasons are in plain sight, even leaving aside the agreement to increase military spending (which might or might not materalize).
We have discovered that Iran is able to strike EUrope at least as far as Milano and Berlin: we would not have found out without Trump.
At the same time, Trump has eliminated the risk of an Iranian nuclear strike for the foreseeable future.
Furthermore, Iran is no longer able to supply drones to Putin, tilting the drone advantage in Ukraine’s favor.
(I note in passing that it was Obama that gave the Iranian regime drone tech superior to what was available to Putin.)
The decrease in oil supply is a problem to which Obama, Merkel, and “Biden” contributed more than Trump, and i trust that i do not have to explain why.
A comment more directly relevant to the video (and to Perry’s introduction to it):
Reducing, or even eliminating, the US military presence in Germany is all for the good: better to get them home now, than to get them home as soon as the Russians start to invade — which i think reasonable to expect under a PotUS such as Carter, Obama, or “Biden”, people prone to sell their friends and try to buy their enemies.
It makes more sense for the US to have US bases only in Central/Eastern Europe, The Nordic countries, Britain, Italy, and Portugal.
For their strategic importance, but also to protect those countries from Germany, France, and Spain.
Not that i expect Germany, France, and Spain to start wars of naked aggression (although that has precedents in the last 5 centuries or so).
But if there is a EUropean army, that could be used, by the Franco-German Establishment, to prevent secession from an increasingly totalitarian EU; and Spain seems likely to align with France & Germany on this issue, at least under the current Establishment.
One more thing: I am old enough to remember a time when it was difficult to argue that US military bases in Western Europe were good for Europe: the consensus “on the left” was that Western Europe was under US military occupation.
But some Europeans older than me seem to have completely forgotten about that time.
I have watched quite a few Zeihan videos in the past year or so and have come to the conclusion that he is full of shit. Full of sound and fury signifying nothing. He combines gung ho USA cheerleading with profound TDS. He has been predicting the immediate demographic and economic collapse of China for more than a decade, with Europe and developed Asia not far behind. How these dying nations are going to challenge US military power, I am not sure.
For all the hysteria, all Trump has done to NATO is ask Europe to put its hand in its pocket. All he has done in the Gulf is finally target the worst regime in the region. If Iran remains a sticking point, then other Gulf oil producers will simply build alternative routes from their wells to their markets.
There seems to be this hysterical assumption from Zeihan and other commentators that whatever prevails on the day they are speaking/writing is how it’s going to be forever. Which is why we get endless guff about the end of American whatever, based very often on a tweet that Trump has already forgotten.
One of his repeated contentions is that globalisation does not work without the US navy. This is highly questionable and, even if he is right, does he think the US is going to put its fleets in dry dock? Trump has actually been more active overseas than expected. Obviously both the current state of affairs is the Worst Thing Ever, as was TRump’s expected non-interventionism.
An “end to US power”?
Nah. An end to US one-sided obligations. An end to military welfare to ungrateful recipients.
There’s a scene in the movie Blazing Saddles in which the new black sheriff holds his own gun to his own head and yells “back off or the nigger gets it!”
That’s Europe right now, yelling at Trump. And Trump has called that bluff.
What is American power?
The schism between US and Europe is cultural. Europe specially Western considers War not part of their status as “civilized” world -in sense it is a luxury belief- instead for US civilized world cannot last without war.
Europe have no problem making friends with Iran, Hezbollah, etc. or worse ignore its military growth despite that if not for the current battle that destroyed significant Iranian industries, they would certainly get London reaching ICBMs* in 10 years. Europe is permanently looking at the mirror.
*ICBM do not have necessarily to be nuclear.
I submit that there are much more severe cultural schisms within “Europe”; AND within the US; than between them.
If European governments do not know which side they are on concerning the conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran regime – then that is not the fault of President Trump.
When President Trump repeated what Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman said about Greenland – there was a tidal wave of hate and contempt in response, carefully noted in Washington, but it was the betrayal over the Islamic Republic of Iran that was the real break – if the European governments are not supportive against a regime that has been chanting “Death to America” (and killing Americans) for 47 years, then they are not friends, and it is folly to treat them as friends.
President Trump improved the American armed forces in his first term – and has done so since “January 2025” as well.
The Western European governments have, by contrast, allowed their armed forces to decay.
There is also the “little” point that if the typical conservative minded voter in the United States spoke freely in many European countries (spoke freely about Islam – or many other matters) they would be put in prison.
So what are these “common values” that the United States is supposed to be spending money, and American lives, defending in Europe?
If “friends” will persecute you, indeed put you in prison, for peacefully expressing your opinions, they are not friends.
In the end, military power depends on manufacturing power – on industry.
This is such an important point – that it bears being repeated.
In the end, military power depends on manufacturing power – on industry.
It does NOT depend on pleasing the international establishment – whether European governments (almost all of which are useless – a waste of space) or the “liberal” establishment in the United States itself.
Indeed if a policy angers the international “liberal” establishment – it is probably (although not always) a good policy.
That’s rather crude analysis. If the USA wants to project power into the Middle East, it needs access to Rota, Aviano, Fairford, Ramstein et al more than people seem to realise. Basing in Saudi, Kuwait, UAE etc. is obviously vital at the tactical level but that’s within enemy weapons range, and we’ve seen some very high value USAF loses on the ground due to apparently underestimating Iran’s capabilities even though observing parallels in the war in Ukraine should have provided all the warning required.
If USA wants to project power into the western Pacific, it needs access to Yokota, Yokosuka, Pine Gap, Darwin, Tindal, Changi, et al.
Regardless of how much USA builds up its warfighting capabilities, without the acquiesce of allies, it is vastly harder to mount sustained operations in a different hemisphere. Like it or not, such acquiesce requires constructive political engagement with elements of “the international establishment”.
Here is a comment that acknowledges reality on the ground.
Much depends on the interpretation of “constructive”.
I submit that, within living memory, Reagan and Trump are perhaps the most “constructive”.
By contrast, Carter, GW, Obama, and “Biden” were, if not the most “destructive”, then amongst them.
Seems to me that the USA is in the process of deciding if we really do want to “project power” or “mount sustained operations” in far-flung places.
Generally, it has been those far-flung places asking us to come and do things. But, they also then hesitate to let us in to do so. Certainly we benefit from many of those efforts too, but our present issue is, do we benefit enough to make it worthwhile?
And so there shouldn’t be an assumption that these are our values when deciding strategy.
Fortress America. We stay home and watch from afar. That’s one possibility now. I think we can do quite well this way.
Old Jack Tar.
Marco Rubio is very diplomatic – a good quality in a Secretary of State.
It was not that he did not try (and is still trying – soon off to the United Nations for yet another pointless exercise) to get international support for the effort to eliminate the Rabid Dogs (and the words are just) who are the IRI regime – but there was no help from the European governments.
They, the European governments, have made their choice – so there is no point in continuing to try and please them.
By the way – IRI capacities were not underestimated, and American losses have not been great.
Allies are indeed useful – but the European governments (must certainly including the British government – made up of people whose ideological background means they should not receive any security clearance) have shown they do NOT wish to be allies.
Fair enough, message received and understood.
As for bases such as Diego Garcia – if (if) a base is indeed vital for the national security (existence) of the United States, then it will have to be used. Regardless of what Sir Keir Starmer and David Lamey say – otherwise the word “vital” should not be used.
Governments that have shown they can not be trusted in relation to the Islamic Republic of Iran regime – have indicated they can not be trusted in regards to the People’s Republic of China, or anything else. Especially a government the ideological background of whose members indicates that they should be given no security or intelligence information what-so-ever – because they are quite likely to pass this information on to the People’s Republic of China (the Prime Minister’s friend Peter Mandelson – certainly would have done so).
What is, for example, Mr Lamy going to do if the United States armed forces do something without the permission of the British government – make another speech about Reparations? How much gold or silver does the socialist Gentleman want? I am tempted to ask if nine grams of lead would do – but that might be misunderstood as a threat, so I will not ask it.
Or perhaps someone else will be sent to Washington to demand that swords be turned into plowshares (largely already done in the case of the British Armed Forces), that there should be peace at any price, and (in the same speech – the-same-speech) demand that the war in Ukraine continue – which is it, peace or war? How can BOTH parts of the speech be followed? Peace at-any-price AND endless war – no wonder the Democrats cheered the speech to the rafters, it was contradictory. A case for continuing the war in Ukraine can certainly be made (most certainly it can – YES) – but NOT in a speech about turning swords into plowshares.
And then there was the section of the speech about the “rule of law” – that did not mean IMMIGRATION law now did it, because that would be “racist” and “Islamophobic” (and Islam is the same as other religions – we can all be friends, so-the-speech-said) – no it meant “international law” and the ravings of far-left American judges – who treat both the written law and the Constitution as toilet paper – yes it was well known what was meant by “the rule of law” in the speech.
Sending a supposedly non political person to Washington, who then makes a hyper political speech (and NO I am NOT saying His Majesty wrote it – of course he does not write the speeches he is given to read out) a speech that spat upon their host – who has (to avoid a diplomatic incident) to pretend to like the speech (even say he wished he could have attended in person – rather than watch the speech on television) – to smile and pretend not to understand that he is being insulted, being spat upon.
Yes – that message was received and understood as well.
Both President Trump and the rest of the Administration smiled and said how much the loved everything – but they understood, when people are spat upon – they get the message.
There is no need to respond with anger to the message – smile and nod and say how much you love the people who spit upon you, but remember what they did. And it is remembered.
As for another European leader, born in the Chicago area – in the United States, there is information on his activities dating from 1983 to a few days before he assumed his current role as head of a certain City-State (a period of some 42 years) – the evidence is very clear, so his anti American speeches (and activities) are not astonishing – they are exactly what should be expected.
Sadly this problem is the result of American (yes American) activity – namely the operation to remove a previous head of this city-state in 2014 (ordered by the Obama Administration – in order to get someone more on their ideological wavelength).
The world changes, but people normally do not – not in what really counts.
For example, Cardinal McCarrick was a long term Soviet agent-of-influence (perhaps recruited in St Gallen Switzerland in the late 1940s) – and when the Soviet Union collapsed he did not reform (any more than he stopped sodomizing boys) – he just went on to be an agent-of-influence for the People’s Republic of China.
He negotiated the deal by which the Underground Church in China was betrayed – all part of “Social Justice” you see. Lots of torture and death – but this comment has gone on quite long enough, I do not wish to bore people.
Are you sure about that? I’m all for striking Iran but it’s not encouraging.
David Levi: Things. Stuff. Money.
Gauge it by American deaths and injuries. It’s all still better than a weekend in Chicago.
@bobby b
Seems to me that the USA is in the process of deciding if we really do want to “project power” or “mount sustained operations” in far-flung places.
I think their mind is already made up. The American people do not care about foreign policy, they do not care about wars in far flung places. The people in power however care about this things almost to the exclusion of all other things. I can’t work out why, except perhaps that it polishes their ego to be a player on “the world stage”.
Certainly we benefit from many of those efforts too, but our present issue is, do we benefit enough to make it worthwhile?
Do we benefit? I mean obvious in some ways, but there is a cost and that cost is massive military budgets that are driving us into bankruptcy, that cost is death and destruction of generally the poorest of the poor, of the weak and powerless. That cost is giving support to some of the worst tyrants on the basis of “he might be a bastard, but at least he is our bastard”. It is hard to see that the benefits outweigh the costs. When have our military efforts ever redounded to the benefit of the people that we claimed to help? After trillions of dollars and millions dead, Afghani girls still cannot got to school, gay people are still hung off bridges, and the poppy fields continue to flood the world with poison. I mean since WWII what victories have we had? Maybe Gulf War I?
Fortress America. We stay home and watch from afar. That’s one possibility now. I think we can do quite well this way.
Yes please. The only actual existential threat to America is the use of ICBMs, it is literally impossible to invade the place even if we had one tenth of the military we have. And for some reason the only part of national defense that we don’t spend gobs of money is on defense against ICBMs. Why? I have no idea.
One reason America is impossible to invade is that there are more small arms in private hands that a significant proportion of the world’s militaries put together. This is the way the constitution envisaged it. that along with a Navy to keep trade flowing. Can we have that again please? The loathsome, reptilian Lyndsay Graham actually talked about something I agree with: I had to carefully reassess my position because I assume anything that corrupt shill says is wrong and evil, so agreeing with him is always worrisome. But he suggested that we provide the Iranian people with small arms to defend themselves. Yes, a thousand times yes. That is the American way. It is what we should be doing in Taiwan too.
In general, I agree. But, I think many of us have our own specific bugaboos in this regard.
For me, the perfect exception was the Iran mullahs. I am happy to pay more for my gasoline temporarily knowing that those sh*ts are mostly dead, in painful ways. I’d also be willing to do things to help Israel. But those are MY little foibles. Other people have other foibles, and I fear we try to serve them all. We should only serve mine, dangit!
I do believe that we are quietly doing just that. We had some mis-steps – the Kurds stole the first batch! – but the Iranian people are the best hope for Iran, and even though they are presently cowed and powerless, they ARE getting large quantities of small arms, with instructions to not use them until some critical mass is reached. No point starting too early and just losing another 100,000.
Ok, what I just said wasn’t enough.
American people, for whatever reason, have always been “fairness’ oriented. That’s how we got the rep of being the world’s cops.
If you see a bully beating a kid across the street, you cross the street and stop it, even though you don’t know the kid. So much of our history is encased in that concept.
And the world is full of unfairness. The mullahs massacre the Iranians, the commies kill the Vietnamese and Cambodians, Hitler kills the Jews and Brits and Frenchies, stupid people try to take over Grenada (?!), islamic nutjobs massacre Christians, and so we say “not on my watch!” and head in.
And we’ve always had the power to do this. We may have used it stupidly, and inadequately, and lacked the will to do it completely, but I still think most of our impulses were good.
That was fine for a rather rich country in which most people had a good life. (Well, at least the “people who count”, which is a sad indictment in itself.)
But we’re losing that luxury. We have descended in economic terms. I bought houses when I was a kid. My kids can’t do that. Everyone ate when I was a kid. Even that is questionable now.
And so we need to turn inward, and clean up our own house. We still can’t ignore the worst abuses – Mexico looms large – but we do need to go more on the continuum towards Fortress America, until we (and here I really want to type “kill our own commies”, but that would be divisive.)
The world doesn’t like us, so screw them. But I’m still crossing the street when I see the bully beating the kid.
@bobbyb I think that is a very fair analysis. I do agree Americans are about fairness and the bully example is a good one. But I’d also point out that for all our efforts we don’t seem to be having much success at stopping the bully, and we seem to end up with the person we are supposedly helping, hating us. So we aren’t doing that much good. It is kind of like that thing when you see a Neanderthal beating his girlfriend in public, and you go to help her, and she turns around and tries to scratch your eyes out.
I find NATO especially galling because Europeans and especially European politicians take very much a “Americans are a bunch of unsophisticated rubes” attitude to America while living under the house we built and repaired. It has that ugly sense of a teenager or a twenty year old living in their parents’ basement complaining to all their little friends about how dumb their parents are, how unsophisticated, how unplugged to the real world they are. While living off their hard work. “What do you mean you want me to take out the garbage? Fascist!” It is enraging. We are, like those kindly parents, protective of Europe, but their attitude towards us, their demands from us while barely lifting a finger to help is just so wrong. Of course, that isn’t totally fair. Europe did help in a number of incidents, but it is the supercilious attitude that really annoys me. The million articles about how Europe is so much better in every way than America. And perhaps the one that enrages me the most is Germany. A country vulnerable right in the heart of Europe, a country without natural resources, who lives off the American teat, and has the most horrible attitude toward us. Who will hardly buy a tank or a missile, and then refuses to buy LNG from the USA while buying it from, of all places, Russia? It is insane.
It is also worth pointing out that this attitude in Europe that they are ancient states and America is an upstart, is complete bunk. America, aside from Britain, has had a constitutional republic consistently, the same system of government for 250 years. The French are on their fifth Republic. Germany was only formed in the late Victorian age and only just got its two split halves in two. Belgium was just created ex nilho to balance things after Waterloo. Italy was what? 1929? When I was in my 20s I dated this Portuguese girl, and i remember the total shock when she told me that they had a military coup in 1973 (date might be wrong). I grew up in stable Britain and the idea of that happening was beyond my imagining. These European states are all these junior upstarts, but like that teenager think they are so much wiser and more sophisticated than the old guy who pays for everything.
I’d love to see some of our troops come back home, but do I think that it’ll reduce the DoW budget by a dollar? Unfortunately not. That’s not how government finance works.
And to those who say that if we shut down Ramstein it’ll hamper our ability to fight wars on the other side of the globe, I’d say that is a feature not a bug.
And, FWIW, your point about restoring our finances, I have been concerned about this most of my adult life, but am much less so now. AI and robotics will bring an age of abundance and deflation that will swallow our debt whole. I mean the rest of the world (China excepted) is pretty screwed, and will no doubt again live off American charity again, beating us over the head with their begging bowl, but America I think will prosper.
The middle east, ironically, will prosper as will south east asia, but Europe will just die an ugly death, rotting away in cancer and dementia, reminiscing about the good old days.
The Europeans who are keen for American interventionism are the Atlanticists, ie those who are most pro-American. It is quite amusingly ironic that these are the people that Americans accuse of being parasites and ungrateful.
I am not an Atlanticist. In my adult lifetime it has been pro-American Atlanticist British PMs – Blair, Cameron, Johnson – that have ran down our armed forces and made us less independent.
The age of a country isn’t based on how long it’s current form of government has lasted. France is a much older country than America. Very strange mindset to think otherwise.
Shorter version of what I wrote above.
If foreign governments will not even support you against the genocidal fanatics (and they are genocidal) who control the Islamic Republic of Iran – then they are not allies, and it is pointless to treat them as if they were allies. And if they control island bases which truly are “vital” for your very existence (IF that is truly the case) – then you will have to use those bases, regardless of what these fake “allies” say – “allies” that no longer have armed forces that could stop you anyway. Again this is only the case if these bases truly are vital.
And if a man was engaged in pro enemy activity as far back as 1983 (going on Communist “demonstrations”) and as recently as 2025 (deleting your Twitter account does not get rid of what you said and believed) – then it is logical to assume they are still hostile in 2026. They should not be treated as some unbiased person who is speaking out of religious conviction.
Being given a special title such as “Prime Minister” (such as the current Prime Minister f the United Kingdom – who was a leading member of the Haldane Society of socialist lawyers – i.e. lawyers who REJECT the fundamental, private property rights, basis of the Common Law) or even “Pope” – does not change this.
Again there is nothing President Trump can do about any of this – it is most certainly NOT his fault.
And, I repeat, the military capacities of the Islamic Republic of Iran were NOT underestimated, and American casualties have NOT been heavy.
To claim otherwise is to claim incorrectly – even if the person making the incorrect claims has long service in the armed forces of the United Kingdom.
?since when? the ITC was setup by us Europeans precisely to thwart USA “interventionism”.
Yugoslavia intervention?
Martin.
President Trump is more pro British than Prime Minister Starmer is – and is more pro British than the British establishment generally, NOT that this is a hard standard to beat – as the British establishment despises Britain (the British people).
And the same is true of France – it is President Trump, and those Americans who support him, who wish France (the French people – nation) to survive – and it is the French establishment who could not give a damn about the French people (the French nation).
It is President Trump, and people like him, who would be upset if something like the situation described in the book “The Camp of the Saints” came to pass, and it is the French (and general Western – including in the United States) establishment, who do NOT care.
The “Treason of the intellectuals” has become the “Treason of the establishment”.
If you look at Europeans who supports American wars like Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran, as well as those who have advocated and lobby for greater American help for Ukraine and for America to stay involved with NATO, it’s almost entirely Atlanticists.
I assume by ITC you mean the ICC. While America has not joined the ICC I would say it is pretty simplistic to say that it was set up by Europe to thwart American foreign policy. All the Canzuk nations as well as Japan and South Korea joined the ICC. Are they also in on some anti-American conspiracy (which China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea were not)?. Even if it was true, no arrest warrants have ever been filed by it against Americans. Its main targets have been Africans and Vladimir Putin. It hasn’t stopped any American military interventions anywhere at any time. The Americans were also deeply involved in the two 1990s precursors to the ICC, the international tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Well yeah, by definition 😀