What analysts see but ignore: Trump doesn't know how to deal with the new axis of power, except to

[ancianita]

appease them, while he uses US military might only to attack N.A. "cartels" and U.S. citizens

https://archive.ph/oxuqg

They Want Nothing Less Than a New World Order
Sept 5
By Richard Fontaine and Andrea Kendall-Taylor

" ... In June Russia, China and North Korea had more or less stood by as Iran endured 12 days of punishing war at the hands of Israel and the United States, issuing statements condemning the attacks but little else.
But to dismiss the axis on these terms is to misunderstand what it truly is: an alignment of four countries that, despite vast differences, see a common adversary in the United States. Though they may occasionally come to one another’s aid — like the North Korean soldiers who joined their Russian allies in battle against Ukrainian forces — that is not the point. The group has a much more ambitious objective. It seeks, like the World War II era Axis Powers of Germany, Italy and Japan, “a new order of things,” ... Discontented with an international system they believe denies them the status and freedom of action they deserve by virtue of their power and civilizations, they are united in the desire to change it.

Already, cooperation among the four has strengthened the military capabilities of America’s adversaries while weakening the foreign policy tools that Washington can wield to confront them. Nowhere has their impact been more apparent than in Ukraine, where China, Iran and North Korea have enabled the Kremlin to sustain its war and better withstand international pressure... to bypass U.S. and allied sanctions and export controls while offering third countries alternatives to dependence on America’s market, banks and currency.

It is the military impact of the ties between them that is bound to be most consequential. These countries are sharing military technology and know-how in ways that allow them to narrow America’s military edge. Their cooperation could shorten the time it would take Russia to reconstitute its conventional forces in any pause in the war in Ukraine, by supplying ammunition or the component parts Moscow needs to manufacture more weapons faster. This could create a window of vulnerability for NATO if Russia can rebuild faster than Europe can ramp up its capabilities. Axis cooperation also complicates the picture for U.S. and allied defense planners who can no longer assume that any one of these countries would fight alone ... And there is also a risk that they could initiate concurrent crises in an explicitly coordinated or opportunistic manner, overstretching U.S. bandwidth and capabilities.

Indeed, the gathering in Beijing suggests that the axis ... sense an opportunity. The Trump administration is riling America’s longtime allies and partners, closing off access to its market, withdrawing humanitarian aid and development assistance, ceasing international broadcasting and democracy support, and explicitly declining to play its longtime global leadership role. For Mr. Xi, Vladimir Putin of Russia and others, there may never be a better moment to challenge the U.S.-led global system and hasten American retrenchment...

The Trump administration is well aware of the challenge the axis poses. Its solution, so far ... aims to improve relations with Russia under the assumption ..., it can draw Moscow away from its other backers. Ending the war in Ukraine in a way that allows for a better relationship with Russia would seem to be their first step.
But another attempt to reset relations with Russia is not only bound to fail — as it has before — but also exacerbate the problem. The Kremlin will not abandon its view of Washington ... Mr. Putin is unlikely to believe that a single U.S. president can undo ... decades of U.S. foreign policy toward Russia.

Efforts to lure China are likely to be similarly futile. Certainly, the administration’s attempt to get to a trade deal with Beijing by handing out geopolitical concessions — for example, allowing advanced A.I. chips to go to China — is unlikely to succeed in pulling the axis’ most powerful member away from its partners. Russia and China are likely to simply pocket the concessions ... use them to strengthen their ability to challenge the United States.

The good news is that Washington does have the necessary tools at its disposal to overcome the axis. ... The question is whether the Trump administration will choose to do so."
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Good news? No. Rationalizing news.
The question of whether trump "will choose" should not be posed as "the good news."
Moreover, it's doubtful that these analysts who imply what Washington's necessary tools are, even see how trump has chosen to misuse them.
Given trump's appeasement tendencies, he won't even bother to "choose" to overcome the axis. It's worth noting that many editorials trend toward rationalizing republican administrations' moves along the wrong side of history.

Long term, we must "fix" our domestic democratic governance to have a shot at regaining our allies. And trump's "war department" is determined to isolate the U.S. even as we are surrounded by alienated trade friends and hostile trade enemies.

In the meantime, we should know more about the reality of who all make up the new axis's attempts to establish a new world order.

Bloomberg offers an historical perspective that the NYT doesn't.

https://archive.ph/cLaIn



The optics of Xi rubbing shoulders with Putin, Kim and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reinforced the image of what ... have called the “Axis of Upheaval,” a loose coalition ... posing a challenge to the US-dominated global order.

Flanking Xi on Beijing’s Tiananmen Gate were Putin and Kim, the first time since ... more than half a century ago that the leaders ... stood together during a military parade.
Joining them were the leaders of some of Southeast Asia’s biggest economies like
Indonesia and Malaysia, along with former Soviet states ... Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia.
China’s wartime allies such as the UK and the US were not present for the occasion...
unlike a decade ago, absent this time were ... Poland and the Czech Republic — replaced by Serbia and Slovakia, European nations more sympathetic to Russia.
Other nations, including South Korea, Egypt, Brazil, among others, sent senior officials or envoys.
Since taking power in 2012, Xi has methodically built up blocs outside the orbit of Washington’s influence. A ring of neighbors across Asia is meanwhile being drawn by Beijing’s increasing economic and military might.

[Irish_Dem]

1. The balance of global power is shifting as we speak.

And not in US favor.

Quite the opposite.

[ancianita]

4. Yep. That's why these two sources are posted.

[MrWowWow]

2. tr💩mp So Wants to Be in the DICKtator Club

Thus far, he's only made it to the DICK stage.

[alwaysinasnit]

3. I suspect that this group of leaders were emboldened to make this public statement because of the

character (or lack thereof) of the current occupier of the WH, and the knowledge that tsf epitomizes the rot that permeates our society.

[ancianita]

5. Yes. They've met before, & now move further to take advantage of weak trump's further weakening of the U.S.

Our hope and work is to regain the presidency so that the body politic regains domestic strength enough to re-establish us on the right side of human history, not just American history.

[alwaysinasnit]

6. +1000

[ancianita]

7. back atcha! ...

[CanonRay]

8. We have the worst possible person in the White House

at the worst possible time.