usa strength is its power projection.its location can also be its weakness as since it is so isolated,there is a tendency to not interfere and get its hands dirty.the us public is generally risk averse being a 1st world population.they need black swan events to muster some fight.
if usa does not power project due to this political tendency and lack of funds for military of that size which can dominate the whole globe,etc,then it will decline in global outreach and hence empire.
remember,china and russia just need to dominate the neighbourhood to win,usa needs to maintain a global empire.if it loses influence in any one place,it the loss of america.
this wokeness affects at the heart of american power projection,they wont have the right political setup to use a huge late stage ww2 like military to achieve their geopolitical goals.look what happened in vietnam and afghanistan.their people need easy wins which they wont get.in other words everything should turn out like gulf war 1 or it will get sour for the us politician.usa got lucky with a string of incompetent enemies and now that it has destroyed the stupid,only the determined and evolved are left like in afghanistan.
Theoretically USA is the only country that can be isolated and still remain rich. It is self-sufficient in everything. Worlds most arable fertile land (India is 2nd,) unlimited fresh water, unlimited oil and natural gas (energy independence), Has all the techs that others import... medical tech, military tech, industrial tech, semiconductor tech, India Russia China all have at least one shortcoming from the above list while USA doesnt.
Has access to unlimited amount of skilled and unskilled labor and can adjust the numbers and import people as and when needed. Get millions of unskilled mexicans n south americans by opening the southern border, get millions of skilled asians by relaxing immigrant visas process.
Plus has strategic depth... has deep warm water ports, safe on both sides by oceans.. and no neighbor that can challenge it within 5000 Kms. It reached this stage by defanging every country in the western hemisphere.
In that sense, Geographically USA is the best placed nation today.
The US can withdraw from the world, lose the dollar reserve currency status, lose access to cheaply produced chinese goods, and become 30-40% poorer. But A fall from $70,000 per capita income to $50,000 is still above most of the world and still rich.
But the US economy is highly leveraged and the US society is most primed for a mad max scenario when things go even a little south. And its not known if the current US elites and power structure can manage an orderly internal decline. It hasnt really been tested in a long time. Since last 30 years, its been a one way flow with US dictating terms to the world with no outside influence coming in to the US.
As the world becomes more multi-polar, this might change. And foreign powers can start meddling in american internal affairs and use its fissures to their advantage. This is the american elites biggest worry. So their strategy is to 1) constantly and needlessly needle other powers and keep them off balance and busy and delay them from fulfilling their shortcomings.
2) At some point in the future, when this stops working, they can withdraw from the world, hugely reduce the wasteful military, while passing the baton/making a good deal with the new power and still remain relatively rich for a long time.
The "liberal" elites in the US seem to like and understand the CCP and a future G2 arrangement because both think alike and elites of both US n China are abrahimic in thought, indoctrination and practice even though the countries are different. This is disastrous for India and the world.
In the long term we need to get the US to understand it is a better option to align with democratic, dhamic & inclusive India. For that we need to sort out own problems in 15-20 years and have a strong hand at the negotiating table. Meanwhile India is doing good by growing closer to EU, Japan and others to keep our options open.
