Yeah, but the popular narrative now is that China is the real super power because they have a strong autocratic leader and aren't bogged down by democracy, and don't have to deal with other people's uneducated opinions.

Not that they have a mountain of shadow debt built upon the biggest housing bubble the world has ever seen (by far) and an absolute demographic time bomb about to blow up their future...

> and aren't bogged down by democracy, and don't have to deal with other people's uneducated opinions.

well, looking back at the Iraq WMD invasion - were US bogged down by democracy?

Very likely; US public opinion puts massive constraints on what's considered acceptable troop losses and deliberate infliction of civilian casualties. Given how China's treated the Uyghurs, I suspect a Chinese invasion of Iraq would've looked... different.

Before the war, a solid majority (66%) favored using military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Once the war started, a similarly large fraction of the American people thought it was the right decision. Public opinion didn't shift into the negative until quite a bit later, a while after Abu Ghraib.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-...

Disruption of financial markets is not a precision weapon, and it frequently backfires. Currency wars aligning with multipolar powers makes them even more disruptive. Once the US defense of the dollar turns from theoretical to reality, it necessitates violence. You can say "the USD has all this power as a reserve currency because of US military power projection," and it may be true, but once other powers start to align and actively compete with the dollar as the reserve currency, the US needs to actively respond. And that means making good on their threats, not just projecting them. Thus, global financial instability leads to violence.

And the US military is having a recruitment issue. Not to mention new recruits tend not to be up to fitness standards. The two wars at once standard is questionable at best.

>more than any other planet on earth

Take a look at the space around you. How many of the items you see were made in the US?

And? Access to food and energy is significantly more important that new consumer goods

Modern food and energy rely upon countless items manufactured in China. John Deere would not be able to continue making the tractors they currently make without Chinese components. Same goes for everything from oil tankers to highway pavers. Even the logistics side would become difficult without being able to replace cell phones and computers.

There are no planets on earth