Have you watched our politics? We don’t want to run shit. Running shit is expensive.
Also, America did run the show. Twice. After WWII, when it held a global nuclear hegemony. And after the fall of the Soviet Union, when it was the sole superpower. Both times we basically did everything we could to slough off the responsibility.
Of course we want more influence. But we don't want to run things.
It's not because we're nice people or whatever. It's because we're a maritime and trade power while our competitors have historically been land powers. We want someone rich we can trade with who takes care of their own problems at home.
> Do you not understand these goals have been accomplished with only Russia and China pushing back?
A lot of the world is constantly pushing back against all kinds of hegemony. To add to your list, there is no love lost for America in Brazil, much of Africa, most of the Arab world nor in Central Asia.
> What US wants occurs
Have you seen how discordant our alliance talks are? They're multilateral and messy. The only reason Europe and America are in step with one another is because of Russia. The only reason the Quad exists is because of China.
The reason the US does not like China is not because of their economy but their politics and military ambitions. Both China and India have nukes so they can defend their territory against the US just fine. China wants to expand into taiwan, the south china see and even some west china territory India controls and who knows what else.
If you think about it, being wealtheir than the US does not affect the US much so long as the US is still a competing consumer economy and the dollar is the global currency (kind of like english being lingua franca, unless the world trusts China more than the US to pay its bills, RMB will never displace the dollar ) what changes for the US? So long as GDP is the same and the US does not rely on exports for survival it can still maintain the most powerful military. The problem is with China using their wealth to compete with the US military similar to USSR which might lead to a world war 3 situation.
India on the other hand, no doubt will improve its military but I don't see India spending 100B+ a year on military or foreign bases and multiple aircraft carrier strike force groups and all that. The only real conflict opportunity for India are pakistan and China but if India is allied with the US then the US and NATO countries will be a deterrent. Much of why India is neutral on ukraine and won't publicly be closer to the US is a result of economic dependencies such as oil and trade routes. A prosperous india might be able to break free from those shackles and equally compete with EU and the US as well as with China.
The EU is a society that is winding down.
Americans are sensible and realize the future of innovation and progress lies in countries that have young people.
A bunch of old Europeans are not a threat. Europe is utterly feckless anyway and is unlikely to ever be able to field a large enough army to actually be a threat
Reminds me of that attempted mass murder at yet another Winter Festival in France - doesn't make any sense that this would happen again and again by Islamists from a US perspective, but from a "fuck it, we're just giving up" perspective it makes perfect sense.
In a list of American geopolitical concerns, a traditional force on force land invasion wouldn't even make it into the top 100. Swap out "Europe" for any other political entity real or imagined and it would make no difference.