Damage done. Dangerous times.
From that Axios piece posted earlier (18.14):
'Why Xi and Putin think "the West is in free fall"
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin are strategizing how to reposition themselves for a new, more powerful future amid a rapid deterioration of the U.S.-led global order.
What we're hearing: Xi and Putin, meeting Friday in Beijing and again yesterday in the city of Qingdao, don't appear to think they have the cachet — even combined — to create an entirely new system. Nor is it clear that at the moment they would want to trash the U.S.-led institutions that have anchored the global economy and political order since World War II.
But look for the mutually distrustful pair to feel out ways to transition to a new world in which a loose grouping of China, Russia and their allies can become more or less the geopolitical equals of the West.'
And from an NYT opinion piece today:
'Trump Tries to Destroy the West'
Is that how he thinks about it? Who knows. It’s impossible to get inside his head and divine his strategic goals, if he even has long-term goals. But put it this way: If a president of the United States were to sketch out a secret, detailed plan to break up the Atlantic alliance, that plan would bear a striking resemblance to Trump’s behavior.
It would involve outward hostility to the leaders of Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Japan. Specifically, it would involve picking fights over artificial issues — not to win big concessions for the United States, but to create conflict for the sake of it.
A secret plan to break up the West would also have the United States looking for new allies to replace the discarded ones. The most obvious would be Russia, the biggest rival within Europe to Germany, France and Britain. And just as Russia does, a United States intent on wrecking the Atlantic alliance would meddle in the domestic politics of other countries to install new governments that also rejected the old alliance. ...........
'For America’s longtime allies, the response means shedding the hopeful optimism that characterized the early approach taken by Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, France’s president. Merkel is the right role model. She has been tougher, without needlessly escalating matters, because she has understood the threat all along.'
www.nytimes.com/2018/06/10/opinion/g7-trump-quebec-trudeau.html