…Yet it seems safe to say that the world no longer trusts U.S. promises, and perhaps no longer fears U.S. threats, the way it used to. The problem, however, isn’t Biden; it’s the party that reflexively attacks him for anything that goes wrong.
Right now America is a superpower without a fully functioning government. Specifically, the House of Representatives has no speaker, so it can’t pass legislation, including bills funding the government and providing aid to U.S. allies. The House is paralyzed because Republican extremists, who have refused to acknowledge Biden’s legitimacy and promoted chaos rather than participating in governance, have turned these tactics on their own party. At this point it’s hard to see how anyone can become speaker without Democratic votes — but even less extreme Republicans refuse to reach across the aisle.
And even if Republicans do somehow manage to elect a speaker, it seems all too likely that whoever gets the job will have to promise the hard right that he will betray Ukraine.
Given this political reality, how much can any nation trust U.S. assurances of support? How can we expect foreign enemies of democracy to fear America when they know that there are powerful forces here that share their disdain?
There is the chaos that Republicans are causing in Congress, but potentially the revelation that Russia isn’t quite the threat the world thought they were and the emergence of China and others as world powers have probably helped to blunt our influence somewhat too. It’s not really a bipolar world anymore, there’s a range of players on the field now, moreso than during most of the latter 20th century. But given how effective our weapons have been in Ukraine, shows that we at least have our massive military budget going for us. We’re not dependable, but if push comes to shove , we’ve got a big stick we can walk in with… assuming our hyper-short attention span can maintain focus long enough.
Russia has switched tactics though. They are buying foreign politicians and using hybrid cyber warfare now, quit successfully too, at least until 2021.