Robert Kagan Announces Trump Has Destroyed American Hegemony in the Middle East and Broken the American Alliance System

Robert Kagan, whether you love him or hate him, is a serious observer and participant in American foriegn policy for the past 30 years. You might disagree, but you can’t ignore him or reject his views out of hand.

He recently appeared on the PBS Newshour and essentially pronounced the end of the American led world order as we have known it for the past thrity years since the end of the Cold War.

To be clear I think he is absolutely right in his analysis of how Trump’s leadership has destroyed and squandered American power. Kagan rightly points out that if America can no longer guarantee freedom of navigation in the waters of the Middle East, we have lost the ability to support our allies Japan and South Korea in accessing the energy they need for their economies to operate. Further, our European allies accurately perceive us as an unreliable strategic partner due to Trump’s trashing of the NATO alliance. Trump has simply destroyed our credibility and our ability to provide the security guarantees that have made global commerce possible, and have underpinned the global security order. This is a huge win for Iran specifically, and China and Russia in their long campaign to disrupt the American-led world order.

I have been highlighting aspects of America’s collapse as a global power under Trump’s ‘leadership’ on social media using the hashtag, #SuperpowerSuicide, coined by historian Timothy Snyder to aptly describe Trump’s disasterous foriegn policy over the first year of Trump’s return to the Presidency.

You can and should watch the entire presentation by Snyder to the Council on Foriegn Relations, and weep for a now-bye-gone era which kept us all safe, wealthy, and secure:

Was THIS what you voted for MAGA voters? The complete and intentional implosion of American global power and order? Well – sorry to say – even if you didn’t, it’s what you got. You do have a chance to start to reverse course by limiting the damage Trump and MAGA can inflict on America by denying the control of Congress this coming election. Absent that check, I fear Trump’s destruction and our decline may be irreversible.