Let’s keep this brief. In 2025 the US:
- Gave up trying to win the Ukraine war;
- Turned NATO from a vassal protection scheme into a vassal looting scheme;
- Slashed scientific spending massively;
- Lost a trade war to China;
- Doubled down on the AI Bubble, in a race it will lose;
- Was humiliated by China’s rare-Earth sanctions, realizing it couldn’t build weapons without China;
- Pivoted hard to trying to hold onto Latin America, after almost all Latin American countries had replaced the US with China as their main trade partner;
- Went to war with their own university system;
- Realized (this is now widespread) that dollar hegemony is almost over;
- completely destroyed what remained of their moral soft power to enable a genocide in Palestine, making everyone realize America is run by people who might as well be Nazis;
- Was governed by the most corrupt and stupid President of the 20th and 21st centuries; and,
- Gave up on solar and renewable energy.
Some of this is sort of admirable. Ukraine can’t be won, so you might as well not pretend it can be and acknowledging the end of dollar hegemony is wise. Pivoting to the Americas won’t work in the medium run, but it’s at least an acknowledgement of actual power realities.
However basically the US now knows that it is weaker than China. China has a larger navy by ship number, and it won’t be long before they have more tonnage (if they wanted to, they could have larger navy by tonnage in two years, they have the capacity.) The Chinese and Russians have more advanced missiles and drones, and far more production capacity. The Chinese are ahead in almost all tech areas with only a few bastions (civil aviation, chips, space launch being the most important ones) remaining and all those bastions are under assault and WILL fall. There is precisely no question that in 10 years, perhaps even five, China will be equal to the West or ahead in every important technology and almost all non-important techs.
What people are not understanding is that while the US may be able to turn Venezuela (MAY) their days of throwing their weight around are almost over. The drone/missile revolution and China’s advances in making them cheap and abundant mean that sitting offshore and freely bombing other nations is a strategy whose best-by date is now in sight.
The US/West had already lost years ago in the most important sense: all the important trends (tech, industrial capacity, military build capacity, shipbuilding) were running against it and there was zero possibility that those trends would change. For over 20 years I have pointed out that US policy and international trends meant the US dollar would lose its reserve and default trade status, now it is becoming common wisdom.
2025 wasn’t the year the US lost, but it was the year when everyone with two brain cells to rub together and even a smidgen of objectivity realized it.
The US is still a great power, and ex-hegemons do not go gracefully into that long night. America will kill and impoverish a lot of foreigners and Americans as its decline accelerates.
But it is all over but the shooting, and 2025 is the year it became impossible to argue otherwise without people laughing in your face.
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Jan Wiklund
It even seems like US declines faster than Europe. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3jjUTh1acU.
Canada stops selling high quality aluminum to Boeing, they sell to Airbus instead. And of course Chinese businesses.
Idiocy is of course great in Europe too, with sanctions that seems like the suicide squad in Life of Brian. But US has more to loose.
Forecasting Intelligence
Europe is collapsing way faster than America. Whilst I agree with most of what Ian says (for example, I actually think the US university system is grossly over-rated, massively woke and not as good as it used to be) if you look at the key tech metrics, China is now ahead of the US in many fields.
However, here’s the key point. Sure, China is no 1 increasingly, and the US no 2, but Europe is nowhere to be seen.
Even though I agree to a large extent with Ian, my take is the US will remain a great power and the dominant force in the Americas deep into the 21st century. And that’s enough.
America doesn’t have to be no 1 in the world to remain rich and powerful. As long as its richer and more powerful than all other peers (other than the Chinese).
Jan Wiklund
By the way, it happens that ex-hegemons realize their days as hegemons are over and resign (almost) gracefully. Holland did, more or less, and Britain only fought two very localized wars, in Malaya and Kenya, before they admitted that the world was changing.
Then they applied for a deputy post with the new hegemon.
StewartM
Was governed by the most corrupt and stupid President of the 20th and 21st centuries;
Who is still backed by his entire party and possibly a plurality of Americans; especially those with little education. Moreover, when the proverbial feces hits the fan even in their personal lives, most still won’t blame him but shrug their shoulders and say something like “Oh, that’s just the way it is”, the same way they talk about the Sun eventually becoming a red giant, or the expansion of the universe, just a “fact of life” that one has to accept, not something imposed upon them by the politicians they love. I’ve heard this from their own mouths so many times!
Only Democrats are responsible when the economy goes south, or even performs sub-optimally. Why not? That’s what they hear every day from the bulk of the news media. Democrats run the economy, it’s a “disaster” even when it’s not, and when Rs are in charge, it’s always “Morning in America”. The propaganda machine goes on.
Of course, one can argue (and I might agree) that the US economy is in such arrears it can’t be fixed “democratically” in the current democratic system, a system where a handful of rural states control the Senate, a filibuster, the Hastert rule, and a conservative stacked court system who would not “call balls and strikes” but put a very heavy thumb on the scale just like they did to protect Trump. Sometimes I fear we’re like Weimar, incapable of reform within; true reform has to be imposed externally.
Happy New Year guys!
bruce wilder
I continue to stand amazed at the extent to which Trump, as dumb (and amoral) as he is, is consistently oriented to reality in a way his predecessors and rivals are not.
Bob
Hi, Happy new year.
I welcome the end of US hegemony and the power of the “West” in general including the UK. I welcome the end of all hegemony.
There is no such thing as renewable energy. It’s all catastrophic. Please sort this out.
All the best for 2026.
Eric Anderson
“The drone/missile revolution and China’s advances in making them cheap and abundant mean that sitting offshore and freely bombing other nations is a strategy whose best-by date is now in sight.”
Correct. But, this conclusion will rapidly have deeper implications for State actors of every stripe. As KSR theorizes in Ministry for the Future (must read btw) the next evolution is the “pebble mob” type missile. These are high-velocity kinetic projectiles designed to destroy military infrastructure by firing “pebbles,” ie. slag, etc. at high speeds. Like the Oreshnik, one missile releases hundreds of these little bad boys that then “swarm” from multiple directions at once.
Art precedes reality. Give it ten years. Large state actors will develop them. They’ll be distributed to smaller state actors for defense. Those smaller states will fail and the same arms auctions will occur like they did when Russia failed enabling them to fall into the hands of non-state actors. If/when that happens … big, big, trouble for state actors.
mago
The Empire has acknowledged jack shit.
A most cheerful new year to one and all.
Enjoy what you gots while you gots it.
Ian Welsh
America as Britain in 1970 (not that far away for America) isn’t all that impressive. A lot of people fail to understand how the cancer of financialization proceeds. Or, if you prefer, India even now (a paper great power.)
It’s not clear to me that America will keep the #2 spot, or not for that long in historical terms. Britain sure didn’t.
Oh, and Britain did not go gracefully: WWI and WWII were part of Britain’s decline. If we can avoid a world war I’ll be, not happy, but glad. Fortunately the US does seem to be speed running decline.
Like & Subscribe
Who is still backed by his entire party and possibly a plurality of Americans; especially those with little education.
He’s backed by way more than that. Most importantly, he’s backed by Israel and its wealthy donors and those very same malevolent scum also control the Dem Party thus preventing any true resistance to the former underbelly of fascism in America that has now risen and fully taken power and is flourishing in plain sight, acting with impunity and is beyond reproach.
The Dems Are Not The Solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VAuC9Bi5UQ&t=1350s
As for being Numero Uno — who cares? Who would want that ignominious designation at this juncture considering the state of the planet? It’s tantamount to boastfully proclaiming that you’re the new captain of the Titanic just subsequent to it hitting the iceberg.
Jan Wiklund
Ian: If WWI and WWII were part of Britains decline – which they certainly were – they appeared nuch earlier than US is now. At least WWI did.
And WWII was certainly not a rearguard action from Britain, it was a struggle for the booty, fought by US and Germany. Britain was a sideshow.
Britain gave up India grudgingly, but in the end without much violence. They tried to keep to Kenya because there were British settlers. But in all, they gave up their empire surprisingly easy. Perhaps because there was not much feeling for it among people in general, it was a business by a small class fraction. It was politically impossible to make people pay for retaining it.
Mark Level
An excellent post, and mostly some pretty good responses too.
However Trump is not and never has been truly popular. He’s always been a divisive and alienating figure since the 1980s, when Spy magazine (edited by Graydon Carter) documented his clownishness in the NYC business and media environments. 36% support most recently, 59% disapproval, not even close. How is the system rigged such that every Pres. election cycle you get 2 people hated by over half the population? That’s “democracy” (not), baby.
The DimmieCraps are 100% responsible for his 2 terms, Obama principally, they put up human garbage to oppose him, the cackling butcher of multiple countries (Iraq, Libya, Haiti, Honduras, Syria, etc.) Hillary, then Brain- Bleed Biden, lastly the drugged-up sex worker and sociopath Harris– powered across the finish line ONLY by widespread disgust at T’s first term hijinks, continual hogging of the stage, risible staff: fattie Sarah Huckabee, “the Mooch”, Larry “Cocaine Cuddles” Kudlow, bloated Dr. Evil wannabe Sebastian Gorka and many less memorable fascists & fools, plus especially his treating Covid as a big joke and the opportunity to counsel the public that if you cut open your arm and let light in it’s better than the toxic vaccines of Big Pharma, who earned trillions from just one US bioweapon loosed against Earth’s peoples.
Mago’s only half-right this time, and though I once thoroughly despised him for lying about Russia losing Ukraine with “over a million” dead, Like and Subscribe is becoming the perennial broken clock, right on New Years’ Day.
Don’t forget the projects that Trump actually does get (sort of) done– he just shut down DC’s 3 golf courses so he/his family can grab the properties and jack up the fees; https://apnews.com/article/trump-golf-courses-washington-dc-53ba4e673bb78bdea1fa101e4030b0bd?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
Isn’t this precisely the kind of shit that “Banana Republic” dictators used to do? Nice car, now it’s mine, nice property, mine, cute wife, mine now . . .
Oh, and numerous BitCoin & Crypto Pump and Dump scams as well. Somoza finally had the wealthy Chamorro family turn on him when he started legislatively stealing their properties, and side with the Leftist, revolutionary Sandinistas so as not to lose all their assets, which is why he was driven out. However Trump steals property and assets from formerly public resources on behalf of his fail-sons & billionaire buddies, Elon, Thiel etc. as well, so nobody in the public nor much in the media, except for the TDS, rightly object, to no effect, “Blue Sky” and Russiagate idiots, who rightly deplore him but only offer Zionist NeoCon scumbags like Hakeem Jeffries, aka “AIPAC Shakur” as an “alternative.”
Eric Anderson’s comment in a way is the most dystopic here, and I have no evidence to disagree or challenge his claims. I guess even those resisting their own enslavement now can only act via tech-violence and mass carnage, there is NO social-cultural creed of kindness or sanity in Western cultures anymore, just worship of the most powerful and evil factions of local duopolies. Support only follows from sociological traits, Christians, Nazis, Flat Earthers, Fetus Fanatics, White Supremacists and knuckle-draggers are the Right; fake PMC Limousine GLiberals performing virtue while bootlicking corporate Masters are the Left (sic) opposition (sic). “Shabbot Shalom!” yells the bimbo, not-grieving widow of Charlie Kirk, modeling proper “Christianity” for the Bible Bangers.
Europe and the US deserve to crash and burn, there are a few podcasters and nominally sane people who oppose the Death Cult but YouTube demonitizes and censors them, little effect is seen. Cultures that knowingly cultivate the seeds of their own destruction, because the status quo is so evil and insupportable? That seems to be where all the late Neoliberal, NeoCon Endless War regimes are now. Congratulations!! The King of Shit Mountain will devolve into the King of Shit Starvation road . . .
Happy New Year, all! It’s gonna get lots, lots worse for those who don’t get out before it comes crashing down. War on All and Looting Forever to all the Sheeple who conform and obey.
StewartM
Like & Subscribe:
The Dems Are Not The Solution.
“The Dems” are indeed “not the solution” because “the Dems”, despite confident workspeak to the contrary, are essentially a diverse collection of interests opposed to the current regime. They don’t agree on that much; and even the best “Dems” offer solutions that at the very least aren’t good enough save to mitigate things a bit and often would continue the decline. To fix America would involve doing things we don’t dare even dream of doing now.
Insofar as fascism, having read the some of diaries of US WWII combatants, I think that many of them would have backed fascism. Many seem to think that Nazism was anti-Christianity–which it indeed was, in the truest sense, but fascism would easily have accommodated their nationalist form of Christianity just like it did everywhere else. We’ve always been tilted towards fascism, which is why we went easy on so many post-War. The commies actually threatened the system, so we were never easy on them; the WWII alliance was formed on a basis on need by leadership way smarter than the average American. (Even today how many cheer when Patton says “We fought the wrong enemy?” in the movie? Do you think those guys who cheer actually understand WWII history and why people like George Marshall essentially believed we needed the USSR to defeat Nazi Germany?).
StewartM
Bruce Wilder
I continue to stand amazed at the extent to which Trump, as dumb (and amoral) as he is, is consistently oriented to reality in a way his predecessors and rivals are not.
That includes say, his view of the American Revolution?
(Once again, Bruce carries water for the fascists).
Mark Level
To respond to StewartM’s attack on Bruce W, for the following overly-obvious statement, “I continue to stand amazed at the extent to which Trump, as dumb (and amoral) as he is, is consistently oriented to reality in a way his predecessors and rivals are not.”
How is recognizing that despite his idiocy and weather-vane tendencies, Trump at least doesn’t have the same fealty that the Biden ghouls had toward the actually-fascist Ukrainian junta, “Oh, boo-hoo, our plucky little Comedian proxy is being treated so unjustly by the big mean Russkies, we have to say yoked to their failed war AS LONG AS IT TAKES!” Now, JD Vance (who I despise) at one point seemed to recognize this, and I think he has more mental acumen than Trump even on his worst day.
Are you siding with actual Fascist enablers like Tallifer, who used to comment on here all the time cheerleading the Banderist junta? Who when someone noted how Zelensky had an American citizen, Gonzalo Lira, beaten and abused and murdered in prison by medical neglect, just yawned and wouldn’t respond? Or with Euro-slug clowns like Kalla Kallas and the (openly Nazi both) likes of Von der Lyin and Merz who seem to want to escalate to nuclear war and extermination across Eurasia coz “Putin” can never have a Win?
Trump is horrible, but even the blind pig finds the occasional acorn. I was fair to Like and Subscribe (deeply Russophobic and racist when he started posting on here) when he says something intelligent & insightful, as in this thread.
I don’t want to straw man you, but what is your frigging point? I only see an ad hominem smear that looks like projection to me. I could be mistaken but please explain what in BW’s statement (which can be faulted as overly obvious, & I will concede Trump changes his mind more often than his handlers change his diapers.) Please enlighten us as to how the statement is fash-adjacent, I think that is a yuuuuge stretch, an assertion made with no supporting evidence.
bruce wilder
I thank Mark Level for his able defense, though I honestly do not understand the charge. (How exactly am I carrying water for “the fascists” here and now or anywhere, anytime?)
In the OP, Ian acknowledged at least three moves that went directionally toward reality. I agree with Ian that those policy shifts are not likely to work out well, partly because Trump is dumb and amoral, as I said above.
I don’t think we should be getting into food fights in comments. I don’t want it and I am sure Ian doesn’t either. StewartM and I disagree about the suitability of the Democrats as a candidate vehicle for political reform; there is so little reason or evidence for StewartM’s view on that issue, that I do not much like refuting it or in any way dealing with someone who would repeat the tired tropes associated with the arguments in defense of the indefensible. I didn’t do it here. Others made the point.
different clue
” Food-Fights ‘R Us”.
That’s the Prime Directive for a lot of Leftists here in America.