The “three Os” are “Obstructive, Outdated, and Obnoxious”.
We’ll leave out “Stupid, Superficial, and Sycophantic” and “Broke, Boorish, and Boring” for now.
America hasn’t just lost respect. It’s lost too much credibility. The current nail in the coffin is technology. China is now dominating nearly all fields of technology while America flounders in futile internal conflicts and international insanities.
For the US, this could be fatal. America is an image as much as a country. The invincibility of American tech was taken for granted for so many years. Such a huge tectonic shift away from the fundamentals of the postwar world is unknown.
The risks to American intellectual property and its positioning in the market are catastrophic. Patents have shelf lives. So does the capital invested in US IP. As the staggeringly disingenuous and unrealistic AI bubble is proving,
When that bubble bursts, all that big money will not be happy about it. Next gen AI is definitely coming, but it takes as long as it takes. That’s way too long for these billions of dollars to sit around twiddling their thumbs when they could be making big money elsewhere.
It’s all about ROI, not White House illiteracy or Congressional cowardice. This is realpolitik in the most unambiguous sense. China is directly plugged in to the entire consumer market, not niche markets. Chinese tech will sell, directly or indirectly, at all market levels.
US tech isn’t doing much but flattering itself. The hard product is excruciatingly unimpressive, and so is the market performance. Chatbots? AI Agents? So what?
This is no longer the 1950s, and the US has competent competition worldwide. The IP wars will be brutal, and losing isn’t an option. It’s what sells that wins this war. American prices alone should neuter anything that comes out of the US.
Then there are the little matters of major techs like robotics, energy, space, and defense. China now leads in all fields. The sheer scope of related technologies from nuts and bolts upwards is the problem.
How did the US get so far behind so fast?
Guess.
Loss of direction is bad enough. Lousy leadership makes it worse. A strict diet of total irrelevance, focusing on everything but real, solid achievements, is worse still.
Destroying longstanding relationships is dubious at best. Exterminating those relationships with appalling diplomacy is simply stupid. To make relationships unworkable with official national policy is a whole new league of dumb.
Never mind useless conspiracy theories about why it’s happening. It’s now a massive self-inflicted obstacle for the US. Sleepwalking off every available cliff isn’t generally considered a good move. For the US, it’s becoming monotonous.
Solving none of your own problems and working night and day to create so many more doesn’t seem to help, either.
China is now clearly winning. All it needed to do was remain largely silent and advance its own interests. You can argue with China. You can dispute with China. You don’t have to listen to endless useless narcissistic drivel while you’re doing it, though.
The US has dug a deep multi-generational hole for itself. Either the US gets on the ball, or the future is looking very nasty indeed.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
