Francis Fukuyama on the U.S. as a declining power:
American decline is a direct product of Trump's rise since 2016.
It is as if Trump had decided to do everything in his power to weaken the United States vis-à-vis China.
He has polarized an already polarized country, cut funding for basic scientific research, and attacked American universities which are the best in the world.
He and his colleagues have openly stated that their domestic opponents — the Democrats — are a far greater threat to the future of the United States than either China or Russia.
There is agreement among America's friends and rivals that the United States has become something of a rogue state that is contributing to global instability and disorder — as well as something of a laughingstock.
While Ukraine 🇺🇦 is fortifying, the Polish 🇵🇱 and Baltic 🇪🇪🇱🇻🇱🇹 defensive lines have barely been started, even though they have been planned for a long time.
I have checked a good part of the borders with Russia and Belarus and no defensive preparations are underway, with the exception of the reinforcement of anti-migrant barriers.
However, the threat is real. In the aftermath of the war in Ukraine, if the status quo persists, Moscow will have an army of 1.5 million troops, thousands of tanks, ballistic missiles, millions of FPV drones, and hundreds of thousands of Geran-type attack drones.
The Baltic Sea will obviously be a Russian priority, both to consolidate control over Kaliningrad and Belarus and to expand access to the sea. Faced with the American withdrawal, only a military guarantee will prevent Moscow from intervening; this requires fortifying the borders, with priority given to key roads leading to major cities.
Orbán ran the same playbook as the Kremlin mobsters, just in a Hungarian traditional dress.
Blur the line between state, party, and “independent” NGOs, then funnel billions of public assets through them.
Corruption at country-scale. And like all world-class criminals, he made State-owned companies his personal wallet.
Yes, that’s the guy Trump & Vance decided to back.
He’s entitled to his views, his politics, his choices. Where I draw the line is the scale of the lies used to justify them, the political framing, the narratives, and the open alignment with the invader.
That’s not an honest broker, just look at Hungary, the election interference, his open alignment with elements of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry & leadership, exposed just days earlier in something that sounded more like a branch of Kremlin intelligence than a partner inside Europe.
And if he can dismiss the reality of people dying in Ukraine as “just haggling over a few square km” not even asking for boots on the ground, just basic humanity,
why would anyone believe he suddenly cares about Americans? Democrats? Anyone at all?
A Christian?
Seeing really deranged and bad takes are all over Twitter from the neo liberal left, and the populist right regarding Peter Magyar and the Hungarian elections.
Let's set the record straight.
Peter Magyar is a Nationalist, conservative, traditionalist who wants to put "Hungary first", restrict immigration even more, and opposes further aid to Ukraine and its entry to the EU.
This should come as no surprise to anyone even remotely familiar with Hungarian politics seeing how he was an Orban supporter and a member of Orban's party for 22 years.
The reason why he left the party and decided to campaign against Orban was because it became public that Orban's controlled president had approved the pardon of a man who covered up sexual abuse at a state children’s home.
That's why overwhelming majority of Hungarians voted for him, he represents traditional, conservative nationalist values most Hungarians support minus the illiberal authoritarianism and rampant corruption of Viktor Orban.
The amount of nonsense that has been written about him and Hungary in the last 24 hours is truly staggering.
People on this platform really do need to post less and read more.
We fought and lost a war in Iran so that both the Iranians and the Russians could make far more money from oil—the Iranians from tolls, the Russians from higher prices and the end of sanctions. That isn’t just strategic defeat; it’s self-destructive foolishness at a level unknown to military history.
@BurggrabenH@DAlperovitch It's interesting where to look at the graph where are shown all gulf countries exports when they started using other ways to export.