politics

We severely underestimated how many smart people didn't realize the true mechanisms of global order

The original architects of American global power did something very clever that no other empire had ever done before: they deliberately hid the instruments of their power.

Specifically, they institutionalized the hard power of the post-WW2 American military into a "rules-based

Yishan

We severely underestimated how many smart people didn't realize the true mechanisms of global order
https://x.com/yishan/status/1906592890845028405

Really good read, appreciate the sharing.

2016 shattered my concepts of geopolitical reality. i still don't know anything

The bigger problem is in pretending it is just a "hidden machine" that works perfectly withinimal maintenance, when it is a very dynamic system run by humans

Unaccountable, hidden power structures do not hold up well over time, eventually they do not even serve their original purpose well, and there's not an easy way to "fix" that