> Wether it cleanly fits into your political ideology or not, The United States is the most powerful country in the world

It's not a matter of my ideology. I recognize that the US was the most powerful country in the world before the pandemic, but looking at the news about the US response, I have a feeling it will no longer be once the coronavirus is finally dealt with. Then again, maybe I'm just biased by the disproportionate amount of headlines the US is taking in international media.

If the US is not the most powerful country then who is? The US has the strongest economy and the strongest military. What other measure are you looking at? Even if you want to look at Europe as a single country then that would be debatable. UK just left and its looking like there is growing support for Spain and Poland to leave. It looks like the EU may be falling apart.

I think you need to look at individual US states vs the US as a whole. The federal government doesn't really have authority to do everything that other country's federal governments do. For example its generally accepted that the federal government cannot force every citizen to be in lockdown while the states can.

The US is extremely divided. Even in these times the political class and society could not get over their differences.

The lack of a social net and out of control capitalism are also massive issues.

The president was downplaying the virus.

The US doesn't look like the most powerful country in the world, nor as a leader.

Who looks like most powerful country then?

Well it's pretty obvious that China is vying for the position, and the likeliest to achieve it.

In the long term, perhaps. But US is still dominant today, and that will not suddenly change next year - the gap is just too great.

Besides, China would need to grow its power a lot to even be able to fit the same tier that US does today. And if they can't or don't want to, then the end result is likely a more decentralized world. Not every era is "Pax ..." - there are long gaps in between the fall of the old empire and the rise of a new one.

China has shitty positioning too. USA was positioned to be a beacon of freedom since it's founding. Meanwhile China is position as what... Authoritarian country that loves to slaughter it's citizens in various ways? That's not exactly a great idea to sell to the world. The only way China can get on top is by holding the rest of the world hostage. Either by military or commerce backed by military. But as all relationships built on fear, that'd be quite a fragile position.

China's positioning is rapid growth and "social harmony". I'm not saying that they actually deliver on this, but that's how it's being sold.

That's their selling point for country managers and boy do they deliver. But it's not that interesting for the general population. Very few people want rapid growth and "social harmony" by themselves.

You'd be surprised, actually. This is more true in third world countries, and other areas that have experienced instability relatively recently (e.g. ex-USSR countries, including Russia) - at some point people start demanding a "strong hand" and whatnot.

Fun thing is, I am from ex-USSR country.

People still remember Soviet-style "social harmony" and there's a big allergy for that path.

Rapid growth is not exactly popular too for multiple reasons.

Growth-over-ecology brings bad memories from soviet era

Growth-over-labour-rights brings bad memories from 90s and somewhat soviet era

Rapid change itself brings bad memories from 90s and 00s too

Trying to become one doesn't make you one. China is a long long long way to go.

OP was claiming "The US doesn't look like the most powerful country in the world, nor as a leader.". If US doesn't count for him.. I'd say China is 3rd world country compared to US.

What are you seeing the suggests that the US is anything other than almost comically more powerful than any other country in the world?

In terms of military might, yes. In terms of economy? We'll see when the pandemic passes. The thing I see is US being too slow to react to COVID-19 threat and its economy being probably one of the most fragile (because of being most market-optimized).