[cinquemb]

That may be true, and Europeans will be free to trust the Russians and the Turkish as the those in SEA are free to trust the Chinese instead.

If the rest of the world doesn't send munitions on target stateside, Americans wont care. Just like they didn't care for the past 20+ years when DoD was tasked with bombing millions others in far away lands without explicit declaration by congress.

Perhaps those who build their relationships on negotiated reciprocity rather than blind trust will fair better in the coming era.

[bryanlarsen]

The general response to broken trust is to trust nobody. Americans breaking trust will make it less likely others trust Russia or Turkey or China, not more.

"If you can't trust America, who can you trust?"

[cinquemb]

I don't disagree with what you state, but I don't think most who are surprised now are ready to ponder systems of governance and cooperation that require less trust than those most used now so i won't go there here.

[bryanlarsen]

And I don't disagree with what you state, but I'm sad that we're going to have to shift to a system of lower trust. A high trust society is a large part of what made America and the West great. My dad did business with handshakes instead of contracts. MAGA wants to tear down bureaucracy and regulations? Regulations and bureaucracy are required for the low trust society they're instilling.

[mdhb]

This response is again just underscoring why people around the world right now hold such an incredibly and deeply negative view of the country right now. You aren’t going to convince anyone else this is their fault that they should have known not to trust you and that they are somehow suckers.

People are motivated to make sure you feel the pain of this situation moving forward.

[cinquemb]

When i see those people start to take actions that they have refused to do so for decades despite the warning signs along the road, I will take those motivations seriously.

Right now, its just a clown show in regards to that.

[mdhb]

Just as an example of what I mean here.

I genuinely don’t mean to imply this as any kind of threat whatsoever just as a friendly pointer but I don’t think yelling “what are you going to do about it?” In a public forum under an alias attached to your real name is a particularly sensible move at the moment.

Lots of things that might have not been a big deal a week ago I would feel a lot less sure about now personally.

[cinquemb]

No matter what happens to any of us personally writing messages here is going to change the situation for those who have ignored the writing on the wall for so long.

People will have hard choices to be made, doubly so for those who have avoided making them. It's great that you seem to now be questioning things you have thought unquestionable; things unfolding now are no surprise to me, and i expect things to get worse, even beyond the current administration or the next until I see people make hard decisions globally.