European autonomy - military, technological, economic, and financial - is beginning to take shape as Europe hedges against current and future fluctuations in [U.S.] policy.
The shift now underway is unlikely to take the form of a dramatic collapse of American power in the Gulf. It is more likely to be subtler and, for the region, more unsettling.
[W]hen ethics are abandoned for epics, and when political power subverts rational military decision-making, it is not surprising that symptoms of strategic fatigue begin to develop.
The rise of transactional unilateral diplomacy—most visibly associated with U.S. President Donald Trump—has exposed structural vulnerabilities in the alliance system.
Trump, grandson of a German immigrant, is particularly peeved at an independent South Africa, which was the worst example of a Western supremacist-cum-colonial mindset.