The United States wielded near-total hegemony from at least the early 1990s to 2014 or so, at which point the first big irreversible cracks began to form.
Russia took back Crimea, and took the Donbass under its wing. China began to methodically divest itself of US IOUs.
Those acts of defiance threw down the gauntlet, serving notice not only to the masters of empire, but to lesser powers around the globe who were sick and tired of being pushed around and pillaged by the saphead American cowboys in their ten-gallon hats filled to the brim with hypocrisy.
Now Donald Trump has become the parodic beau ideal of everything the rest of the world has always found most contemptible in the American ruling class.
They say Trump doesn't drink. Yet he has become drunk with imagined power, and his delusions are fortified by the #EmpireAtAllCosts cult with which he has surrounded himself, and who have easily mastered the paint-by-numbers art of feeding Trump's vanity.
No doubt his confidence has been further inflated by how abjectly the Anglosphere and most of Europe are now genuflecting at his feet – or are at least affecting the appearance of genuflection for the time being.
But they're not the ones who matter. They sold their sovereignty long ago.
All of them, in aggregate, are impotent and meaningless in the context of the great power struggle looming on the horizon of the not-so-distant future.
It's the defiant ones who now matter: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and others among the middle powers of the planet who are increasingly sympathetic with the objective of dramatically rolling back the already receding tide of American hegemony.
Of course, the "true believers" in indomitable imperial power remain convinced that carrier strike groups, invisible bombers, and unstoppable missiles can subdue the rebellion against American supremacy.
Contrarily, the events of the past few years have convinced a great many around the world that the imbecile bully empire is greatly weakened relative to the striking power of the “rebel alliance” arrayed against it.
So … as 2025 leans into its denouement, Trump has boldly picked all the low-hanging fruit – most of it teeming with worms.
Now comes the real showdown.
Earlier today Trump gave Putin a ten-day deadline to stop annihilating the #MotherOfAllProxyArmies in Ukraine. He also reminded the Iranians that the mighty American military is ready, “at the drop of a hat” – so to speak – to resume airstrikes against them if they don’t immediately start “behaving” as they’re told.
He also frequently talks tough in relation to China, but the Chinese just roll their eyes and make it perfectly clear they couldn’t care less what he says.
The Russian military industrial complex is now vastly outproducing the entire deindustrialized western powers. Chinese productive capacity is an order of magnitude more potent. Even the Iranians and the North Koreans can crank out implements of war faster than the Americans and their vassals combined.
So what will the ever-weakening bully do in the face of these challenges?
In my estimation, the notion of taking on the Russians or Chinese remains utterly out of the question, even for the blithering fools at the Pentagon. So, that means Iran remains the only credible option for a bully that feels the existential need to bloody someone.
And, if it comes to that, I am increasingly convinced the Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans will act to reinforce the Iranians as needed to exact a punishing toll on the teetering American titan.
The bottom line is that I don’t see any way the current trajectory of events doesn’t end in blood and ashes for a lot of American soldiers, sailors, and aviators.
