Is Trump embracing aggressive withdrawal?

[SomeGuy]

Quote:This makes sense. Where I am coming form is based on the notion the next Macrodecision phase will be settled mid-century-about one typical cycle length after 1945.  By then China could have twice the GDP as the US and twice the military power.  Thus it would be able to simultaneously deploy a land military superiority wrt to Russia AND a sea military superior wrt to the US without breaking a sweat.  A no-longer hegemonic America will still be dominant in its own hemisphere because of logistical advantages.  This still leaves large regions of the globe as China's sphere of interest. 

I still see the current issues not as a precursor to a Global War, but rather to a Supplementary War phase.  China and Russia are really trying to "round off the borders of their empire" as did Russia in WW II, Prussia in the mid-19th century, and Britain in the Seven Years War.

I agree with you.  I am simply trying to point out that this does not preclude the coming climax of this 4T being the opening act.  Look at the last macrodecision phase, 2 total wars spaced roughly 20 years apart, with the first one setting the conditions for the second.  Look at the one before that, which included both the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic ones, with again the second part inextricable from the first.  We can go back further still, with the Glorious Revolution enabled by Louis XIV's invasion of the Palatinate in 1688, which then precipitated the 9 years War, and brief respite, and then another conflict between the same combatants over the Spanish Succession.

A conclusion of the macrodecision phase by mid-century does not preclude a conflict in the 2020s.  This conflict could drag on all the way through, or it could go in spurts, like the last one.  Or we could have a civil conflict of some form in one or more of the contenders, that could set the stage for a great power conflict of some sort in, say, the 2040s.

I agree that China and Russia are just trying to consolidate their sphere of influence as they emerge from the wreckage of Communism (each of them in different ways), but I also think that the US is presently ideologically incapable of dealing with either of them in those terms.  And, given the events surrounding Flynn's deposition, I am concerned with Trump's ability to fully contend with the forces within the US power establishment most committed to "sustaining" (in reality further eroding) the US' hegemonic moment.