Comment by nradov
14 hours ago
The US is politically stable already (by historical and international standards), and has been since 1865. If you ignore the rhetoric and focus on actions there has been very little substantiative difference in foreign policy across the last 7 presidential administrations.
Going from a treaty and cooperation with Iran to cutting them off was a pretty substantial change that has already had global implications.
The US civil war is not the only time the US has been politically unstable. The civil rights movement, the labor disputes of the 1970s, the economic shocks every decade or so from market crashes all have been moments of instability.
What is January 6th if not a concrete example of recent political instability?
As for foreign policy consistency, 7 administrations takes us back to Reagan... The entire movement to sell out our industrial capacity to China and now the movement to try to reverse that have occurred in this time frame. This is just as important as our endless wars in the middle east, imo.
I don't disagree totally but I felt the need to put some nuance here.
Stability doesn't mean statis. The USA has been remarkably resilient to those minor shocks you listed. It continues to be the most politically stable of all the countries that actually count for anything in international affairs.
If some catastrophic event is required to define instability, then by definition any country will be stable right until one second before catastrophe. This may work fine for certain analyses, but for predicting if or when that event may happen it is useless.
You're saying "nothing bad will happen because nothing bad has happened so far". There's a first time for everything.
If those are "minor" shocks then is it only outright war that counts as instability for you?
If so then what countries in Europe (sans the Balkans) or East Asia do you think are less politically stable than the US?