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Do American on The Motte feel that the country is generally in favour of breaking from its old European alliances? I am not sure I have got that sense when visiting but I've visited only fairly D-leaning areas in recent years.
From the British/European point of view, one has the sense from current reporting that a significant rebalancing is happening, one that I would characterise as going beyond wanting to reduce American spending on e.g. Ukraine, and towards decisively breaking with European countries out of gut dislike, and beginning instead to form either a US-Russian alliance of sympathies, or if not that, then at least a relationship with Russia that is rhetorically much friendlier than that with Europe. I think the fear is starting to take root in Europe that the US would effectively switch sides in return for Russia granting it mineral rights in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. This heel turn seems unlikely, but things are murky enough that it is worrying people.
I feel that this rebalancing is already working in a way towards achieving stated Trump goals – it certainly is succeeding in restoring Europe's appetite for military spending (underinvestment here is one thing Trump has been consistently right about but European leaders have buried their heads in the sand on, hoping he'd go away). But the current situation re Ukraine is also sending confusing signals, as it had previously seemed as though the US wanted Europe to step up and be part of a solution for Ukraine, whereas currently it seems they actively want to stop Europe from having a role in peace talks. The motive for this appears to be stopping Europe from asking terms of Russia that would delay a solution the US and Russia find jointly satisfactory, though perhaps there is more going on beneath the surface.
I did not have the impression that the American population generally has gone through this kind of Europe->Russia realignment in their hearts, Russians still being a regular foil for the good guys in movies (said movies coming from liberal-leaning Hollywood, sure). I have the impression that moving towards Russia is an aspect of foreign policy that Trump has not built domestic support for. But maybe this is wrong. Maybe the average American now thinks not only "Europe should contribute more to solve their own defence problems", but furthermore, "Europe should get its nose out of international affairs and attempt to help only when it's spoken to. We, Russia and China are in charge now."
I'm writing this without especially detailed knowledge of foreign policy, but I'm more interested here in the emotional calibration of ordinary Americans generally. What outcomes would they accept, what outcomes are they afraid of, who do they feel warm to and who not, and to what extent do they feel entirely insulated from global events, alliances and enmities?
I'm not an American (would that I were), but it seems to me that recent American geopolitics reflects a few things:
America and Europe are no longer peers. They might have had a passably equitable partnership till the 90s, but only the blind deny the former has raced ahead economically while the latter stagnates and sniffs its own farts.
The Soviet Union was a far more compelling adversary to both parties than its descendant, Russia, or the new upstart, China. It was a nuclear superpower with large land borders and a hostile ideology. Russia might retain the nukes, and is a great power if you squint, but it no longer has any meaningful ideological drive or desire to spread it beyond "if you trade with us and speak favorably of us, we'll back you". Even China has strong trade relations with Europe, and is not culturally hegemonising to the same degree.
Europe grew complacent, too accustomed to US security guarantees to uphold its own military and budgetary commitments to a mutual defense pact. Why bother? Uncle Sam would pick up the bill, and there's always more welfare to be funded.
The US was too polite to notice, and for the period of the 90s to the early 2010s, not threatened to the degree that it asked for more than lip-service from its allies and subsidiaries. As long as they sent a token force to muck about in American Forever Wars, and made the right sounds in global forums, why demand more?
The former no longer holds. Lines in the sand are being drawn, and the US has realised that the restrictions of international law do not matter. You can tell nearby nations that they better toe the party line or you'll screw them with sanctions or military action, and the world doesn't end. Panama, Mexico, Greenland, all will come to realise that if America wants what you have, there's little saving you. Europe decided to kick back and relax instead of staying peers. They're finding out, to their shock, that what you give and what you get from a superpower are strongly correlated. Especially an insecure super power, one that is belatedly realizing that a legitimate challenger has arisen, and that demanding tribute from its vassals finally makes sense.
The sleeping bull has woken up, and remembered it has horns. Blunted horns, wreathed in garlands and unwieldy from lack of use. But still horns on a very big bull. Speaking softly is slowly being discarded in favor of wielding a very big stick.
Maybe in some respects, but in other respects China seems more dangerous than the USSR.
China is actually rather tame as super powers go. It has minor expansionist aspirations, especially in its backyard the South China Sea. Of course, there's Taiwan, but even that country thinks that it and the mainland are a single nation, they just disagree on who's the legitimate one. That would be akin to a counterfactual world where both Russia and Ukraine consider themselves to be the true inheritors of the USSR.
It is also particularly concerned with protecting its own very exposed supply chain and being self-sufficient in the eventuality of war shutting down maritime traffic.
China is defensive. They have no interest in spreading international communism or Xi Jinping Thought. Not even the communism as a fig-leaf over state capitalism that they actually endorse. They are agnostic to the internal politics and ideologies of foreign countries as long as they don't interfere with theirs. Third parties have to do very little to remain in their good books, free trade is usually sufficient.
I would expect that if by some miracle, Taiwan suddenly reunified with China, they had uncontested hegemony over a few islands, and the US went from a cold-war footing to neutrality, then the rest of the world would have little to fear from China. It might bicker with India over mountains and a few valleys, but that is a glorified border skirmish that would simmer indefinitely as nobody really wants to escalate first.
Of course, this is an implausible setting, and it is possible that such a China would then get expansionist tendencies, but that's not really what's been observed so far.
And most of China's woes are self-inflicted. If they didn't threaten Taiwan or throw its weight around with its neighbors, then the happy end of history that was the late 90s to the early 2000s probably would have persisted for much longer.
I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact I agree. I just want to explain why from China's perspective, it is a far more restrained and civil superpower than the USSR ever was. And they even have a point.
Why can't we all get along?
A cautious monster is not necessarily preferable to a reckless one.
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