politics

I agree with most of what you're saying but I think that the US vastly underestimated both Russia and China's economic resilience. The US still achieved its goals of cannibalizing European capital, but it failed to inflict a battlefield loss or economic recession on Russia, who is now growing faster than the European powers. China is knocking down semiconductor trade barriers one by one by developing their own chips and stealing diplomatic marches (like the Iran-Saudi reprochmen) on the US empire without any warning. Moreover, China continues to respond to American provocations over Taiwan with the kind of political sangfroid that is only possible when you don't have to pander to voters ever 4 years.

The jury is also still out on just how much cannibalizing EU capital will help America in the long term. The whole NATO bloc is now having trouble producing enough 155mm shells to outproduce just Russia. China has 200x the shipyard capacity of the US and the gap is growing.

I think that the US is doing what it calculates to be its only good options, but its calculations are off because it refuses to see anything except its own bloated GDP.