Lethe
Captain
For all its crimes and follies, the American empire has been so successful because it internalised the lessons of the European colonial powers and built alternative models of indirect persuasion and coercion that achieved the same ends without generating nearly the same levels of local opposition. The American hegemonic structure was enabled by that nation's unprecedented economic power and leverage emerging from the Second World War, but was not guaranteed by that leverage, which could easily have been frittered away in more reckless hands. The nakedly coercive and transactional approach of Donald Trump, prompted by his anxiety about the gradual decline of American hegemony, will only accelerate the decline of that hegemony.
In the short-term, Trump can arm-twist Panama, Denmark, and other vassalized nations about a great many things and gloat in his success. In the background, the elites in those nations and many others watching on will be making plans to secure their interests against further coercion. Donald Trump's threats towards BRICS countries about an alternative to the US dollar are a case in point. Every threat he utters only further highlights the need for BRICS nations to reduce their exposure to the whims of the United States. One of the great paradoxes of power is that you have to be careful how you use it, because each action has an equal and opposite reaction. Or as renowned philosopher Princess Leia put it: "the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." Beijing has had its own experience with this in the largely unsuccessful deployment of so-called "Wolf Warrior" diplomacy that now appears to be in decline -- a learning curve that Trump is almost certainly incapable of emulating.
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