What is IR? I’m sorry I don’t understand what you are trying to say.

It is my belief that one positive result of the Trump’s Presidency is that other nations have to confront the reality that Americans are willing/able to elect an incompetent psychopath. This forces them to realize that they can’t rely on American stability. We have become erratic and unpredictable. Hence they will need to become less reliant on the U.S. I see this as a good thing.

I see the U.S. in a state of imperial decline and I’m glad for it. I’m not a supporter of Trump but I try to be objective and won’t deny that he’s done some good.

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I did not know. Thank you for clarifying. Your second sentence is quite impolite. Clearly I have an opinion on international relations. It might be misinformed, poorly stated, foolish even but it’s clear I have an opinion.

I suggest it would have been better to say, “You know, that topic you are posting about in a rather misinformed way.”. And then gone on to state how it was misinformed. As it is your post comes across as angry/bitter. Like you have an ax to grind so to speak. You sound extremist and I get the impression that you think I think of Trump as some benevolent leader.

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It appears your are not reading what I write. While it is a fact that the Pax Americana exists I’m not in favor of it and hope for its demise. I’m happy for American power to decline. I welcome it. But even if I was the caricature you seem to strongly wish I was, your points could be made much more effectively with a change in attitude. I enjoy witty sarcasm very much but yours lacks the requisite wit to be enjoyable. It’s also inappropriately aimed since I agree with what you believe. Not in how you say it though. I have the burden of knowing we are on the same side.

It's awfully rude to trash the discussions this way. Please don't!

To be fair, "IR" isn't a universally agreed acronym for International Relations. I for one hadn't heard it either.

There are a lot of us Americans who no longer want to be a crutch for the rest of the world.

We'd rather be fixing our own domestic problems like our crumbling infrastructure.

Trump campaigned on that.

One viewpoint is that the USA are a crutch to the rest of the world.

Another viewpoint would be that this is based on self-interest.

The USA bombing Iraq because Hussein wanted to sell oil in another currency other than the USD and leaving the so called rest of the world with the humantarian crisis would be one counter example to the crutch-theory.

You're on the right track, but the reason you gave for invading Iraq is very naive. Research "Project for the New American Century", whose founders were very high up in the GW Bush administration. You'll see that the strategies they outlined in 1997 plays out quite well. Toppling Iran has yet to happen, but Syria and Iraq have gone according to plan.

From my perspective it has become a symbiotic relationship. The U.S. maintains the Pax Americana at great financial expense but does so for the benefits it provides. It’s not an altruistic act. Europe and Japan get benefits too. One of the benefits for Europeans is that they get to avoid the messy moral situations that come from wielding such power. Go back to the mess in former Yugoslavia in the 90s to see how the Europeans made a mess of things trying solve it on their own. I don’t want to get into a debate on the merits o that intervention but the situation wasn’t resolved to the liking of the UK, France, Germany, etc. until the U.S. got involved.

Yes, among a host of other things. Churchill said the world must be made safe for democracy while denying freedom to India. Great power is very corrupting.

It's definitely a two way street, but there's less incentive now for the US to stay involved. We're a net petroleum exporter now, Texas of all places is adopting renewables like crazy (proving their viability), highly autonomous and mechanized manufacturing is almost comparable to outsourced production and we don't need soyuz for space launches (soon).

All of that combined, plus the growing need to address our own impoverished parts of the country is making a lot of people in the US think it's time to let Europe do it's own thing.

In what sense is the US a crutch for the rest of the world?

I totally understand wanting to focus on domestic problems but all too often campaigns based on that like to blame everyone but those who are responsible for domestic problems. We saw this with the UK's EU referendum (or "Brexit" as it's now known) where immigration was a key point. We saw this with a great many despots that come to power that blame other cultures corrupting their way of life. Even Hitler used the same rhetoric. And what good does it ever bring us? The US has had frequent shutdowns and regressions to universal health care and the growth of the UK's economy has slowed, cost of goods have gone up and jobs have and will be lost. We are all worse off for it!

Blaming everyone else for your own domestic problems wont help solve your domestic problems. In fact more often than not, you're only going to make them worse because you're just giving more power to those who actually cause those problems to begin with.

I’m sorry but it’s not like the rest of the world simply voted or chosen that state of affairs.

>Trump campaigned on that.

Trump campaigned on whatever the audience of the moment was cheering for. So far he's cut taxes on the ultra wealthy to the point we can't afford to fix infrastructure if we wanted to. Gutted the EPA, refused to impose bipartisan sanctions on Russia, and is talking about stealing land and hurricane relief money to build a wall that nobody wants besides that painted-on-hair racist Stephen Miller.