Es gibt nur einen Einflussbereich: Warum Amerika ohne große Einschränkungen Macht ausüben kann – und seine Rivalen nicht

[Excerpt from essay by Michael Beckley, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Head of Asia Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.]

A one-sphere world carries dangers, but it also gives the United States a rare chance to reset the international order from a position of historic strength. The removal of Maduro showed what that strength can achieve. In hours, Washington toppled a destructive narco-kleptocrat, shut down a hub for sanctions evasion, and punctured the myth of Chinese and Russian reach in the Western Hemisphere. It also revealed the authoritarian axis for what it is: a loose coalition bound by resentment, not by values or mutual defense. Most important, the episode showed that U.S. military power still works.

Deterrence begins with perception, and perception comes from proof. In a world drifting toward disorder, the competent use of force has outsize effects, shaping the calculations of adversaries contemplating aggression and of allies deciding how, and with whom, to secure their future.

Trump squandered part of that advantage by provoking an unnecessary showdown over Greenland and pushing major partners to hedge rather than close ranks. 

I generally agree with the conclusions that the author draws in his last paragraphs.

Having said that, I think he’s over reliant on this Cold War dynamic where ideology predicts alignment in the western hemisphere. The US doesn’t really buy alignment with security guarantees the way it does in Europe via NATO, and even countries that are mostly integrated within the US sphere find space to defy US policy demands (see Mexico, for example).

Venezuela is no longer (rhetorically) openly hostile to the US the way it was under Maduro, but it’s not any more deeply integrated into the US sphere than it was two months ago. Colombia outwardly opposes the US at times but is economically integrated with and rarely effectively defies the US. And the two most significant powers in South America – Argentina and Brazil – are too independent to be considered firmly in the US sphere.