Canadians in the 60's often used to wear a discrete Canadian flag or emblem when travelling, mainly to distinguish ourselves from Americans. That habit fell by the wayside as international travel became routine. Weeks ago, my Hong Kong born wife who knew nothing of this practice said me, "Next time we travel I think we should put some small Canadian flags on our stuff." I had been thinking exactly the same.
I somehow duplicated an earlier reply: sorry. What I MEANT to say was: that might all change with Poilievre ("Lie is my middle name") is elected. Won't take long.
Please! That adds as little to the conversation as "Trudoo is a jerk". I realize you've made up your mind and are looking for validation; however, it was Justin who immediately ran to the Donald after only a single tweet to demonstrate his fealty and then blurted out how weak Canada was by saying the tariffs would destroy the Canadian economy. Trump's trolling of Trudeau and Canada as the 51st state started right there. Pierre criticized the move saying that Trump can spot weakness a mile away, which is true.
I think we're better served by not indulging in characterizations of politicians.
Thoughtful (and persuasive) article, but a few cavils and thoughts:
1. The "shining city upon the hill" and the freedom it advocates is a myth of the American origin; the Pilgrims sought freedom, yes...for themselves. They were fleeing persecution only to impose strictures on any others who didn't embrace THEIR beliefs.
2. America's soft power was never more pronounced than with the Marshall Plan after WWII. Its generosity (and, yes, its realpolitik) not only helped European recovery but limited and foreclosed European embrace of communism.
3. Surprising Mr. Gardner didn't mention Machiavelli and The Prince once ("it is better to be feared than loved"). Clearly Mr. Gardner disagrees with The Prince.
Trump is all those things and more; a greater threat both internationally & domestically. But here’s the rub: he was RE-ELECTED, with this country knowing who and what he is—and isn’t. It is not just what Trump is, but it is now who we are.
As a country, we swallowed bullshit. My parents warned us of the "intellect of the electorate" so this is not a new story. We need to run at the trouble and do what we can to mitigate it--and refuse to hide under the covers for four years.
Such a strange few weeks of calm we have in January. Some like you can see the threat clearly but most choose to imagine it is not real. And so we move closer to the day it begins, in denial. It’s the same feeling I’ve had many times during the countdowns to war, seeing all the signposts on the road and knowing no one will stop where it all leads. And then waking up one morning to a thoroughly changed calculation. January 20th will tell us the scope of his ambition and determination, and whether economic chaos has been unleashed on Canada. Not exactly the fate of Melos, but an opening salvo in something big which will shape our future. 19 days to go.
Soft power is vitally important, as you note. But it’s complicated. In ways I’d wish were better recognized. Today’s many of today’s arguments about hard versus soft types of power have muddled rather than clarified the bases for future U.S. strategy — partly because the term’s definition has been biased since its coinage decades ago. Nye’s original definition tends to treat soft power as good and hard power as bad, or at least mean-spirited, for soft power is said to be fundamentally about persuasive attraction and hard power about coercion. But in fact, soft power is not just about beckoning in attractive upbeat moralistic ways. It can be wielded in tough, dark, heavy ways, too, as in efforts to warn, embarrass, denounce, disinform, deceive, shun, or repel a targeted actor. Moreover, soft power does not inherently favor the good guys; malevolent leaders often prove eager and adept at wielding soft power in their efforts to dominate at home and .abroad. Soft power is largely about whose story winds, and it’s alarming that Trump and his cohort appear to be experts at using dark forms of soft power to conduct narrative warfare.
Yes, quite agree. Birth of a Nation. Volkischer Beobachter. Oodles of soft power. And power in any guise is no different than a tool, and a knife can be used to prepare food or gut your neighbour. Everyone loves the Olympic torch relay and lighting of the Olympic flame but we politely forget that these theatrics were invented for the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Hitler's torch enthusiasts.
We Canadians should start strengthening our military with Korean, Swedish, and German materials. International leadership must increasingly come from from the EU and countries other than the USA.
Greatly appreciate your writing and insights. It appears Canada now has two Russias as neighbours. We have unregulated oligarchies with conservative religions to control the struggling. Canadian conservatives are thrilled to join that category. We will not be Melos in the Athens analogy. We will be an easily absorbed arm of USA: the 51st state under Conservatives.
While your fate will not be as bad as Melos………..or will it? American voters had a choice between good and evil, and chose evil. If the EU chooses solidarity rather than Brexit, Canada could possibly the Melos syndrome.
Ok... What happened was THIS, from a Swedish perspective.
The US is a Gemini nation.
And that soft power Reagan spole about - it was definitively true! We felt it in Sweden and I noted that the cold war was won by those who seemed to have the most fun!
We Europeans eagerly tried it out, but mostly like fashion and costumes, keeping a deep rooted community sense of normality underneath. Our new style sure WAS what we were - but we all knew it was just ONE part of it.
I really actually want to send that playfulness back to you, because it still applies - the one who has the most fun wins! And Dolly parton's songs about rich folks living in a poor folks town... Thats the kind of humble thinking you need to revive! Getting margins enough to doing things for the joy and the curiosity and community and playfulness again! <3
I feel we retain more of that here - but we too need to get back to it!
HOWEVER! WE, looking at you from the side, from a small country next to another self-blind, non-listening big bully, and balancing carefully between the blocs, careful to keep our OWN reality - have always seen your FANGS too, at times. The OTHER Gemini twin. =:/ the one you always needed to do shadow work about. Vietnam may have been the first.
And we saw that whatever Reagans selling stories were - he and Thatcher alike acted brutally to push back 3rd world countries and bring about regime changes, And pushed back them economically, and increased the global inequality again, when WE tried to further them, because we believed in cooperation.
And this, or the relentless RUNNING pace pressing up global competiton and reform to absurd levels, the unchecked and unevaluated absurdity spilling over into war and politics now, after 30 years of underinvestments in people and society EVERYWHERE, both in money and attention - when both spouses need to work in all families! Has been running up so much debt of different kinds that it crashed.
That debt was not even reset when the economy neariy crashes but was SAVED by Obama in 2008 - which made maga Furious, he stole the crash they had been waiting for for so long to be let IN again - and were still left outside gritting, getting nowhere and no representation anymore! >:( how CAN the perfect politician miss THAT?
Only one answer - american bullshit and sales lies that never delivers. :/
All up until Trump the US managed to keep the Evil Twin with its fangs from attacking rhe west, for PR reasons - we SAW him, but the advantage of sitting on your bandwagon was greater so we didnt do more than protesting inefficiently, Noam Chomsky style of being right :/ , and after you went into Iraq against our very loud warnings - we were out in our 10 000 in the streets! We didn't even bother about that much anymore. :/
But the evil Twin eventually hurt us anyway. He stacked up debt like dynamite sticks in the Rust belt and blew his way into the Presidency TWICE! - you... *Censored* didn't have even have the sense to build rhe rust belt massively under Biden, the extra chance you didn't deserve but got anyway! >:( or bloody regulate facebooks surveillance ad monopoly! It's a NATIONAL SECUTITY THREAT right before your noses! :/
So... No. This is NOT just trumps fault. Obama should apologize and many others. It's only like THAT you get the decency back, and get to wield the Sword of Truth again - and when you do, you ALWAYS win.
My dad was very pro American, but then the us was an ally. Trump has changed that, and this has already led to a no-USA product narrative in Europe. Make no mistake, the US may be strong, but a bully without friends will elicit no sympathy when times change
Not Trump is the issue, but the American myth. There is no shining citytrip on the hill. There never was. Soft power still is hegemonic power to give an example.
Dan: Thank you for an excellent post. As a Canadian-American (a Bush refugee who emigrated to Canada in 2008), I think it’s clear that the era of U.S. empire—and the soft power that came with it—is ending. That loss is not something the United States can simply reclaim, and perhaps it never should have been concentrated in a single country to begin with. What still is possible is something healthier: nations acting together to rebuild and wield collective soft power grounded in cooperation, restraint, and democratic norms. The task now is not restoring U.S. dominance, but learning how to govern and lead without it.
Let's start with how America's Military Industrial Complex will have to fold when China no longer sells the pentagon rare earth metals for its advanced weaponry. The is scheduled to happen one week after the mid-term elections. It's why Canada should not buy the F35's that are on the table.
I see no clearer explanation of our American situation and the world. I like the comment about the Canadian flag. I do have some anger at the American flag being desecrated on the back of a truck also carrying a Trump flag. I know the American flag stands for way more than that. If I am traveling and choose to make a political statement I would put an American flag and a Ukrainian flag on my luggage.
It must frighten Canadians and rightfully so that trump refers to the prime minister of Canada as “governor”. I was reading this interesting article in the economist that Canada should join the EU. At first it sounded absurd but I remember in 2005 killington Vermont wanted to secede from Vermont and become part of New Hampshire. (Which is crazy being that killington is located in the middle of Vermont not on the border with New Hampshire.). I guess people have thought of crazier things.
I’m not sure which country or countries you think President Trump plans on invading. We will see what, if anything comes from his rhetoric on the Panama Canal and Greenland, I suppose. But if his first term has any predictive value, he doesn’t seem to be aggressive in much beyond his words. Deeds are few but narrowly targeted (killing Soleimani, for example). No equivalent to an invasion of Grenada so far.
As for your example of “soft power” working on French President Charles de Gaulle, his reaction just might have been different had not the U.S. also had overwhelming “hard power” to be a credible actor in international affairs. It was this Realpolitik that led to Stalin’s quip about how many divisions the Pope had to back up his rhetoric. Lack of “hard power” has bedeviled most European nations since WWII in their quest to be taken seriously on the world stage, the EU itself being seen as something of a joke on that score.
Their reckoning has come with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While difficult to fathom, I suspect that the GOP’s skepticism over that land war comes from the perception that it is fundamentally a European issue that the rich European countries should take the lead on - but can’t because of their underfunding of their militaries. We will see how they react.
The American presidency is not a dictatorship, thankfully, and in his first time Trump’s impulses were restrained by his Cabinet, Congress, and the entire foreign policy establishment. I hope that continues. I doubt it will. On Soleimani, you can belittle it by saying it was "narrowly targeted" but it was the deliberate assassination of foreign general; wars have started over much less and if that attack didn't lead to a war it is only because the Iranians thought themselves (rightly) hopeless overmatched. So it hardly bespeaks caution in the use of military force. And I have to say I find it bizarre that so many are willing to belittle his statement as "mere words." That makes sense for toddlers and the mentally ill, but it is, shall we say, unwise for a president of the United States.
On soft and hard power, I never suggested one was a simple substitute for the other. In fact, I think they are complementary. And the members of NATO that chose to free ride were foolish, in addition to unethical. But notice the past tense in that statement. Most NATO members have greatly increased their military spending since the Russian invasion, and most have plans already underway for more increases in the years to come. The Europeans are already talking about upping the floor from 2% to 3%. There are only a few holdouts (including Canada, which is painful for this Canuck to admit.)
For now, it seems the Senate is standing on its privileges and has rejected outright President Trump’s demand for recess appointment consideration for his Cabinet picks. We shall see how long their spine remains stiff.
As to the Presidency not being a dictatorship, that is mostly because of President Washington’s setting many precedents while in office that had, for the most part, been followed by his successors. Article II does provide for the possibility of overreach and this worry was raised in the debates. It was the knowledge that in all likelihood Washington would be the first President that assuaged these concerns.
A case can be made that President Lincoln did come closest to seizing dictatorial powers in some areas. While the context of a Civil War obviously needs to be considered, he was likely the most powerful President of the 19th century. His overreaching was often checked by the Supreme Court, though many of its decisions were rendered after the particular emergency had passed.
As to Soleimani, while perhaps not your intent, your comment implies that the U.S. had no legitimate cause to target him. While no public explanation was given, his involvement with fatal attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Syria - even if hiding behind Iranian controlled, armed and trained proxies - seems a relevant consideration. That he was the only Iranian military officer targeted - other high level officers could have also been taken out for similar reasons, does make it “narrowly targeted” in my view.
And, now, Iran is in a terrible bind, albeit of its own making. The IDF has demonstrated that Iran, while still dangerous, is extremely vulnerable. So it might just be that any future Trump “crazy” (as opposed to conciliatory) talk might be sufficiently confusing as to intimidate the Ayatollahs (for whom martyrdom seems to be for the proverbial “other guys”, preferably Arabs) into changing course. Though I won’t be holding my breath on that one, one might say that while the Persians may be good at chess, Americans will be playing high stakes poker.
But I see no circumstance under which Iran will involve itself in a hot war with the U.S., its leaders may be and say many things, but, notwithstanding their supposed desire to advance the return of the occluded Mahdi, they are not suicidal. And that too makes them vulnerable to pressure from the fear of U.S. and Israel’s hard power.
Finally, while some NATO members might legitimately be increasing their defense spending, there are reports of Germany’s relying on some accounting legerdemain to make it seem it has boosted defense spending when it remains below 2%. Whether that’s an accurate assessment or not is beyond my expertise to say.
The point on Ukraine remains, the European countries need to take the lead and allow the U.S. to focus on other parts of the world that are beyond European logistics.
Canadians in the 60's often used to wear a discrete Canadian flag or emblem when travelling, mainly to distinguish ourselves from Americans. That habit fell by the wayside as international travel became routine. Weeks ago, my Hong Kong born wife who knew nothing of this practice said me, "Next time we travel I think we should put some small Canadian flags on our stuff." I had been thinking exactly the same.
I somehow duplicated an earlier reply: sorry. What I MEANT to say was: that might all change with Poilievre ("Lie is my middle name") is elected. Won't take long.
Please! That adds as little to the conversation as "Trudoo is a jerk". I realize you've made up your mind and are looking for validation; however, it was Justin who immediately ran to the Donald after only a single tweet to demonstrate his fealty and then blurted out how weak Canada was by saying the tariffs would destroy the Canadian economy. Trump's trolling of Trudeau and Canada as the 51st state started right there. Pierre criticized the move saying that Trump can spot weakness a mile away, which is true.
I think we're better served by not indulging in characterizations of politicians.
Thoughtful (and persuasive) article, but a few cavils and thoughts:
1. The "shining city upon the hill" and the freedom it advocates is a myth of the American origin; the Pilgrims sought freedom, yes...for themselves. They were fleeing persecution only to impose strictures on any others who didn't embrace THEIR beliefs.
2. America's soft power was never more pronounced than with the Marshall Plan after WWII. Its generosity (and, yes, its realpolitik) not only helped European recovery but limited and foreclosed European embrace of communism.
3. Surprising Mr. Gardner didn't mention Machiavelli and The Prince once ("it is better to be feared than loved"). Clearly Mr. Gardner disagrees with The Prince.
Trump is all those things and more; a greater threat both internationally & domestically. But here’s the rub: he was RE-ELECTED, with this country knowing who and what he is—and isn’t. It is not just what Trump is, but it is now who we are.
As a country, we swallowed bullshit. My parents warned us of the "intellect of the electorate" so this is not a new story. We need to run at the trouble and do what we can to mitigate it--and refuse to hide under the covers for four years.
Such a strange few weeks of calm we have in January. Some like you can see the threat clearly but most choose to imagine it is not real. And so we move closer to the day it begins, in denial. It’s the same feeling I’ve had many times during the countdowns to war, seeing all the signposts on the road and knowing no one will stop where it all leads. And then waking up one morning to a thoroughly changed calculation. January 20th will tell us the scope of his ambition and determination, and whether economic chaos has been unleashed on Canada. Not exactly the fate of Melos, but an opening salvo in something big which will shape our future. 19 days to go.
Superb piece! One correction: it was Dean Acheson, not Adlai Stevenson, that JFK sent to brief De Gaulle during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Thanks, Jack. Another reminder to not rely on memory. (I relied on memory...)
Soft power is vitally important, as you note. But it’s complicated. In ways I’d wish were better recognized. Today’s many of today’s arguments about hard versus soft types of power have muddled rather than clarified the bases for future U.S. strategy — partly because the term’s definition has been biased since its coinage decades ago. Nye’s original definition tends to treat soft power as good and hard power as bad, or at least mean-spirited, for soft power is said to be fundamentally about persuasive attraction and hard power about coercion. But in fact, soft power is not just about beckoning in attractive upbeat moralistic ways. It can be wielded in tough, dark, heavy ways, too, as in efforts to warn, embarrass, denounce, disinform, deceive, shun, or repel a targeted actor. Moreover, soft power does not inherently favor the good guys; malevolent leaders often prove eager and adept at wielding soft power in their efforts to dominate at home and .abroad. Soft power is largely about whose story winds, and it’s alarming that Trump and his cohort appear to be experts at using dark forms of soft power to conduct narrative warfare.
Yes, quite agree. Birth of a Nation. Volkischer Beobachter. Oodles of soft power. And power in any guise is no different than a tool, and a knife can be used to prepare food or gut your neighbour. Everyone loves the Olympic torch relay and lighting of the Olympic flame but we politely forget that these theatrics were invented for the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Hitler's torch enthusiasts.
Pete Sanderson
We Canadians should start strengthening our military with Korean, Swedish, and German materials. International leadership must increasingly come from from the EU and countries other than the USA.
Greatly appreciate your writing and insights. It appears Canada now has two Russias as neighbours. We have unregulated oligarchies with conservative religions to control the struggling. Canadian conservatives are thrilled to join that category. We will not be Melos in the Athens analogy. We will be an easily absorbed arm of USA: the 51st state under Conservatives.
While your fate will not be as bad as Melos………..or will it? American voters had a choice between good and evil, and chose evil. If the EU chooses solidarity rather than Brexit, Canada could possibly the Melos syndrome.
Ok... What happened was THIS, from a Swedish perspective.
The US is a Gemini nation.
And that soft power Reagan spole about - it was definitively true! We felt it in Sweden and I noted that the cold war was won by those who seemed to have the most fun!
We Europeans eagerly tried it out, but mostly like fashion and costumes, keeping a deep rooted community sense of normality underneath. Our new style sure WAS what we were - but we all knew it was just ONE part of it.
I really actually want to send that playfulness back to you, because it still applies - the one who has the most fun wins! And Dolly parton's songs about rich folks living in a poor folks town... Thats the kind of humble thinking you need to revive! Getting margins enough to doing things for the joy and the curiosity and community and playfulness again! <3
I feel we retain more of that here - but we too need to get back to it!
HOWEVER! WE, looking at you from the side, from a small country next to another self-blind, non-listening big bully, and balancing carefully between the blocs, careful to keep our OWN reality - have always seen your FANGS too, at times. The OTHER Gemini twin. =:/ the one you always needed to do shadow work about. Vietnam may have been the first.
And we saw that whatever Reagans selling stories were - he and Thatcher alike acted brutally to push back 3rd world countries and bring about regime changes, And pushed back them economically, and increased the global inequality again, when WE tried to further them, because we believed in cooperation.
And this, or the relentless RUNNING pace pressing up global competiton and reform to absurd levels, the unchecked and unevaluated absurdity spilling over into war and politics now, after 30 years of underinvestments in people and society EVERYWHERE, both in money and attention - when both spouses need to work in all families! Has been running up so much debt of different kinds that it crashed.
That debt was not even reset when the economy neariy crashes but was SAVED by Obama in 2008 - which made maga Furious, he stole the crash they had been waiting for for so long to be let IN again - and were still left outside gritting, getting nowhere and no representation anymore! >:( how CAN the perfect politician miss THAT?
Only one answer - american bullshit and sales lies that never delivers. :/
All up until Trump the US managed to keep the Evil Twin with its fangs from attacking rhe west, for PR reasons - we SAW him, but the advantage of sitting on your bandwagon was greater so we didnt do more than protesting inefficiently, Noam Chomsky style of being right :/ , and after you went into Iraq against our very loud warnings - we were out in our 10 000 in the streets! We didn't even bother about that much anymore. :/
But the evil Twin eventually hurt us anyway. He stacked up debt like dynamite sticks in the Rust belt and blew his way into the Presidency TWICE! - you... *Censored* didn't have even have the sense to build rhe rust belt massively under Biden, the extra chance you didn't deserve but got anyway! >:( or bloody regulate facebooks surveillance ad monopoly! It's a NATIONAL SECUTITY THREAT right before your noses! :/
So... No. This is NOT just trumps fault. Obama should apologize and many others. It's only like THAT you get the decency back, and get to wield the Sword of Truth again - and when you do, you ALWAYS win.
Right?
How long will it take?
How many will suffer?
My dad was very pro American, but then the us was an ally. Trump has changed that, and this has already led to a no-USA product narrative in Europe. Make no mistake, the US may be strong, but a bully without friends will elicit no sympathy when times change
Not Trump is the issue, but the American myth. There is no shining citytrip on the hill. There never was. Soft power still is hegemonic power to give an example.
Dan: Thank you for an excellent post. As a Canadian-American (a Bush refugee who emigrated to Canada in 2008), I think it’s clear that the era of U.S. empire—and the soft power that came with it—is ending. That loss is not something the United States can simply reclaim, and perhaps it never should have been concentrated in a single country to begin with. What still is possible is something healthier: nations acting together to rebuild and wield collective soft power grounded in cooperation, restraint, and democratic norms. The task now is not restoring U.S. dominance, but learning how to govern and lead without it.
Let's start with how America's Military Industrial Complex will have to fold when China no longer sells the pentagon rare earth metals for its advanced weaponry. The is scheduled to happen one week after the mid-term elections. It's why Canada should not buy the F35's that are on the table.
brilliant piece. Really hope the political leadership in this country reads this and takes note.
I see no clearer explanation of our American situation and the world. I like the comment about the Canadian flag. I do have some anger at the American flag being desecrated on the back of a truck also carrying a Trump flag. I know the American flag stands for way more than that. If I am traveling and choose to make a political statement I would put an American flag and a Ukrainian flag on my luggage.
It must frighten Canadians and rightfully so that trump refers to the prime minister of Canada as “governor”. I was reading this interesting article in the economist that Canada should join the EU. At first it sounded absurd but I remember in 2005 killington Vermont wanted to secede from Vermont and become part of New Hampshire. (Which is crazy being that killington is located in the middle of Vermont not on the border with New Hampshire.). I guess people have thought of crazier things.
I’m not sure which country or countries you think President Trump plans on invading. We will see what, if anything comes from his rhetoric on the Panama Canal and Greenland, I suppose. But if his first term has any predictive value, he doesn’t seem to be aggressive in much beyond his words. Deeds are few but narrowly targeted (killing Soleimani, for example). No equivalent to an invasion of Grenada so far.
As for your example of “soft power” working on French President Charles de Gaulle, his reaction just might have been different had not the U.S. also had overwhelming “hard power” to be a credible actor in international affairs. It was this Realpolitik that led to Stalin’s quip about how many divisions the Pope had to back up his rhetoric. Lack of “hard power” has bedeviled most European nations since WWII in their quest to be taken seriously on the world stage, the EU itself being seen as something of a joke on that score.
Their reckoning has come with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While difficult to fathom, I suspect that the GOP’s skepticism over that land war comes from the perception that it is fundamentally a European issue that the rich European countries should take the lead on - but can’t because of their underfunding of their militaries. We will see how they react.
The American presidency is not a dictatorship, thankfully, and in his first time Trump’s impulses were restrained by his Cabinet, Congress, and the entire foreign policy establishment. I hope that continues. I doubt it will. On Soleimani, you can belittle it by saying it was "narrowly targeted" but it was the deliberate assassination of foreign general; wars have started over much less and if that attack didn't lead to a war it is only because the Iranians thought themselves (rightly) hopeless overmatched. So it hardly bespeaks caution in the use of military force. And I have to say I find it bizarre that so many are willing to belittle his statement as "mere words." That makes sense for toddlers and the mentally ill, but it is, shall we say, unwise for a president of the United States.
On soft and hard power, I never suggested one was a simple substitute for the other. In fact, I think they are complementary. And the members of NATO that chose to free ride were foolish, in addition to unethical. But notice the past tense in that statement. Most NATO members have greatly increased their military spending since the Russian invasion, and most have plans already underway for more increases in the years to come. The Europeans are already talking about upping the floor from 2% to 3%. There are only a few holdouts (including Canada, which is painful for this Canuck to admit.)
"une main de fer dans un gant de velours"?
For now, it seems the Senate is standing on its privileges and has rejected outright President Trump’s demand for recess appointment consideration for his Cabinet picks. We shall see how long their spine remains stiff.
As to the Presidency not being a dictatorship, that is mostly because of President Washington’s setting many precedents while in office that had, for the most part, been followed by his successors. Article II does provide for the possibility of overreach and this worry was raised in the debates. It was the knowledge that in all likelihood Washington would be the first President that assuaged these concerns.
A case can be made that President Lincoln did come closest to seizing dictatorial powers in some areas. While the context of a Civil War obviously needs to be considered, he was likely the most powerful President of the 19th century. His overreaching was often checked by the Supreme Court, though many of its decisions were rendered after the particular emergency had passed.
As to Soleimani, while perhaps not your intent, your comment implies that the U.S. had no legitimate cause to target him. While no public explanation was given, his involvement with fatal attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Syria - even if hiding behind Iranian controlled, armed and trained proxies - seems a relevant consideration. That he was the only Iranian military officer targeted - other high level officers could have also been taken out for similar reasons, does make it “narrowly targeted” in my view.
And, now, Iran is in a terrible bind, albeit of its own making. The IDF has demonstrated that Iran, while still dangerous, is extremely vulnerable. So it might just be that any future Trump “crazy” (as opposed to conciliatory) talk might be sufficiently confusing as to intimidate the Ayatollahs (for whom martyrdom seems to be for the proverbial “other guys”, preferably Arabs) into changing course. Though I won’t be holding my breath on that one, one might say that while the Persians may be good at chess, Americans will be playing high stakes poker.
But I see no circumstance under which Iran will involve itself in a hot war with the U.S., its leaders may be and say many things, but, notwithstanding their supposed desire to advance the return of the occluded Mahdi, they are not suicidal. And that too makes them vulnerable to pressure from the fear of U.S. and Israel’s hard power.
Finally, while some NATO members might legitimately be increasing their defense spending, there are reports of Germany’s relying on some accounting legerdemain to make it seem it has boosted defense spending when it remains below 2%. Whether that’s an accurate assessment or not is beyond my expertise to say.
The point on Ukraine remains, the European countries need to take the lead and allow the U.S. to focus on other parts of the world that are beyond European logistics.