State of Emergency
1993 - 2001: Bill Clinton / Al Gore (Democratic Party) [1]
1992 Def: George H. W. Bush / Dan Quayle (Republican Party), Ross Perot / James Stockdale (Independent)
1996 Def: Bob Dole / Jack Kemp (Republican Party), Ross Perot / Pat Choate (Reform Party)
2001: George W. Bush / Dick Cheney (Republican Party) [2]
2000 Def: Al Gore / Joe Lieberman (Democratic Party); Ralph Nader / Wilma Mankiller (Green Party)
2001: Donald Rumsfeld / Wesley Clark (Republican Party / Democratic Party) [3]
2001 - 2006: Donald Rumsfeld / Wesley Clark (National Union Party)
2004 Def: Jerry Brown / Joel Kovel (Peace & Freedom); Pat Buchanan / Ezola Foster (America First Party)
2006 - 2009: Donald Rumsfeld / Paul Wolfowitz (National Union Party)
2009 - 2017: Wesley Clark / Stanley A. McChrystal (National Union Party) [4]
2008 Def: Ron Paul / Bob Smith (America First Party); Mike Gravel / Charlotte Pritt (Peace & Freedom)
2012 Def: Peter Diamondstone / Howie Hawkins (Peace & Freedom); Ron Paul / Virgil Goode (America First Party)
2017 - 2018: Stanley A. McChrystal / David Petraeus (National Union Party) [5]
2016 Def: Cornel West / Mary Alice Herbert (Peace & Freedom); Greg Orman / Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party); Donald Trump / Allen Weisselberg (Independent); Alan Keyes / Tom Hoefling (America First Party)
2018 - 2019: Stanley A. McChrystal / Dean Barkley (National Union Party)
2019 - 2021: Stanley A. McChrystal / Dean Barkley (Peoples' Party)
2021 - 0000: Corey Stewart / Louie Gohmert (America First Party) [6]
2020 Def: Alan Grayson / Grace Meng (Peace & Freedom); Dean Barkley / James Stavridis (Peoples' Party); Gary Johnson / Jacob Hornberger (Libertarian Party)
[1] - Just how much was Bill Clinton responsible for the February 27th attacks?
Of course, he wasn't *entirely* responsible, but the lack of attention the Clinton administration gave to al-Qaeda has led to some on the right say that much of the blame lies on Clinton for failing to deal with the group. First was the failure to mediate the Kashmir Conflict. After a terrorist attack in Varanasi by a Kashmiri separatist group based in Pakistan killed 327 pilgrims around the Ganges River in February 1995, India attacked said group's bases in Pakistani Kashmir and Pakistan proper, which led to war between the two states. India was set on humiliating Pakistan, and sought to do this by taking Pakistani Kashmir. The war was barely reported upon in the west, and India was able to occupy Pakistani Kashmir. India's annexation of Kashmir led to condemnation from the international community and eventual sanctions from the US, but the deed was done, and nothing other than a large military intervention could reverse it. In Pakistan, the loss of Kashmir discredited both the civilian Bhutto government and the nationalist irreligious military, which led to Islamist military officers, led by Zahirul Islam Abbas, to take control of Pakistan in a violent coup d'etat on May 30th, 1995. Abbasi then declared Pakistan to be an Islamic Emirate and would institute strict Islamic law in Pakistan. A year later, the Pakistan-backed Taliban would be victorious in Afghanistan, and to celebrate the victory, a merger of Afghanistan and Pakistan occurred, leading to the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Khorasan. The IEK would be a safe haven for Salafi Jihadi groups across the world, with the precondition that such groups help the IEK first crack down on their own insurgencies (the Tajik insurgency led by Massoud, along with the large Shia insurgency across Khorasan). Had Clinton mediated the Kashmir Conflict, it would've prevented India's annexation of Pakistani Kashmir, and in turn, preventing the discrediting of Pakistan's more liberal institutions, which led to the triumph of Islamist elements.
More damning for Bill Clinton was his administration's support for Chechnya. Chechnya would achieve de facto independence after the end of the Chechnya War in 1996, but would be unrecognized. However, the victory of Zyuganov in the 1996 Russian Election, the subsequent restoration of communism in Russia a year later, and the merger of Russia and Belarus in 1999 to reform the USSR would lead to the Clinton administration's focus be on containing Zyuganov's USSR. One way in which they did this was recognizing Chechnya in late 1999. A year later, Chechnya would be taken over by Islamic extremists, but by then most of the international community recognized Chechnya as an independent state, and as such there wasn't much the USSR could do lest they wanted to be placed under sanctions. But if Clinton is to be blamed for 2/27 because he prevented the USSR from cracking down on extremist Chechnya, then why shouldn't Reagan be blamed for it as well because of his support for the Afghan Mujahideen?
This topic is a matter of debate, but both sides can agree on one thing: Clinton could've done better.
[2] - Bush had been president for little over a month. After winning a controversial election, Bush needed to prove himself to the American people, that he wasn't just elected due to the supposed partisan bias of the Supreme Court. It is hard to prove oneself as president within a month, but Bush hoped that on today, February 27th, his first State of the Union address, he would lay out a plan for his first year in office, which in turn would lay the groundwork for his first term. He never got to that.
Bush was supposed to deliver an address to 535 Congressmen, the entire Supreme Court, and his Cabinet members (except for one). This was a fact, a fact known to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden had ties to the Khorasani government (which had tested a nuclear weapon in 1998), and he used those ties to acquire five nuclear weapons. Those five nukes would be placed in New York, Washington DC, Tel Aviv, New Delhi, and Mumbai (targeting India was the prerequisite the Khorasani government gave to bin Laden if he wanted the nukes). The US, India, and Israel weren't the only ones to be targeted. The USSR was also to be attacked. This wasn't a part of the original plan (Chechen extremists wanted to expand themselves, but couldn't because of the USSR), and the Khorasani government wasn't willing to give up any more nukes. As such, the plan was to fly a planes into the Moscow Kremlin Complex.
The Moscow attack happened a few hours before the SOTU. Reports were that only a couple hundred were killed. Zyuganov was one of them, but it couldn't be confirmed until much later. To those in Washington, they were given the order, and when the channels covering the address went black, those in New York, New Delhi, Mumbai, and Tel Aviv knew what to do.
[3] - Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was the designated survivor. Washington DC and New York City were nuked, millions were killed, and almost all of the US government was gone. The Moscow Attack had killed Zyuganov, along with 300 more, and the attacks in India and Israel had also succeeded. The world was in a state of shock and confusion. The New York Stock Market being destroyed had led to the world's economy go in the pits.
Rumsfeld was sworn in outside the Raven Rock Mountain Complex in Philadelphia, which was referred to as the "underground Pentagon". He would get to work immediately, all issues of who would make up his cabinet, of who would he appoint to the Supreme Court, being put to the backburner.
All evidence rightly pointed to the government of Khorasan being the culprit. A day later, Rumsfeld would give an address to the American people, in which he told them the Khorasan was responsible for the attack. He also tried to comfort them, saying that America has the support of the entire free world, and said that justice would be served to the perpetrators.
Seeing as how all of Congress was dead, Rumsfeld could technically go to war with Khorasan without congressional approval. Because of America's membership in NATO, America invoked Article 5, and preparations for war began to be made. Alongside this, Rumsfeld made plans to meet with General Secretary Lukashenko regarding the new terrorist threat. Lukashenko was insistent that Chechnya had to be made a part of the USSR, but Rumsfeld felt that would be going overboard, and instead suggested that regime change in Chechnya be made an alternative. Lukashenko was against this, but got on board when Rumsfeld said that the USSR would be given influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan once Khorasan was broken up. And so, with NATO, the USSR, along with the Central Asian states, the Gulf States, and pretty much anyone who had enmity towards al-Qaeda and Khorasan would become a part of the Anti-Terrorism Coalition (a term coined by Rumsfeld, but would later be formalized into an organization in 2003).
In Israel, the nuclear strike did not get rid of the Israeli government, but it did lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Israelis, leading Israel to be put on high alert. America offered aid to Israel to assist in rebuilding Tel Aviv, however, Israel could not become part of the official Anti-Terrorism Coalition as America needed Muslim majority countries to be apart of it. Ties between the two countries would be straightened to the point where even the slightest criticism of Israel in America was controversial.
With most of their government gone, much of India would soon descend into lawlessness and anarchy. The fact that it was Muslims who did this had inspired large-scale attacks against Muslims in India. The Indian government, or whatever was left of it, relocated to Ujjain, and tried its hardest to restore order. India would become a part of the Anti-Terrorism Coalition, but could not participate in the initial moves against Khorasan as most of their military was dedicated to cracking down on lawlessness.
The Islamic Emirate of Khorasan, knowing that war was inevitable, chose to strike first. On March 3rd, Khorasan struck at Kashmir, and began to take most of the Sunni majority areas within days. However, the Shia-majority Gilgit, the Hindu-majority Jammu, and the Buddhist-majority Ladakh began to take up arms against the Sunni Supremacist Khorasani military, knowing the genocide was inevitable in the event that they would be occupied. Such groups would receive support from the ATC, and would be incorporated into the Indian military once order was restored a few years later.
On March 11th, a nuclear strike on the Tora Bora compound occurred, killing hundreds of civilians, but perhaps more importantly, killing much of the al-Qaeda leadership (including bin Laden and al-Zawahiri). A week later, the invasion began, with American, Soviet, Uzbek, and Tajik soldiers moving into northern Afghanistan. They would fight alongside the Northern Alliance led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, along with other anti-Khorasan militias such as the one led by Abdulrashid Dostum.
The Khorasani invasion of Kashmir had been enough to unite the Indian people and end most lawlessness. American, British, and Indian soldiers would jointly lead an attack on Sindh (whose Hindu population was facing near-genocidal persecution), and would soon move onto Punjab. Both the United States and Soviet Union would collaborate on attacking Khorasani nuclear silos in order to completely denuclearize the country.
By April 15th, Kabul would fall, and Ahmad Shah Massoud would be made president of the new Afghan government. Grozny would fall in a similar fashion on May 1st (America's promise of continued independence of Chechnya was enough to have many secular nationalists in Chechnya collaborate with the Soviet Union, which had made Grozny's fall easier). On June 1st, Islamabad would fall to American, British, French, Indian, and anti-Khorasan militias, leading to the restoration of Pakistan a week later. The initial invasion phase had finished - now it was time to battle the insurgency.
Domestically, it was clear that a lot of work needed to be done in order to rebuild the country. Rumsfeld had made his Vice President Wesley Clark, who had been in civilian life for well over a year, and as a civilian he registered with the Democratic Party. His appointment was done in order to show bipartisanship and unity, but the choice of a military man as his Vice President, along with the fact that much of Rumsfeld's cabinet appointees were generals, was seen by some as a dangerous encroachment of the military in civilian affairs. New congressional elections were scheduled for November 2001. A few days after the fall of Islamabad, Rumsfeld would announce the formation of the National Union Party, in the belief that America would be best served in these times by having a party which reflected what would be known as the "War on Terror Consensus". Seeing as how Rumsfeld's approval rating at the time was 88%, this was supported by most Americans. Some on the left and right disagreed, but there were in the majority overall. The NUP would win 412 seats in the House and 96 seats in the Senate.
With such large majorities, much of Rumsfeld's agenda began to passed, such as a stimulus meant to improve the economy after the destruction of New York, a budget being passed with an increased military budget, and with much of the money being spent to rebuild New York City and Washington DC, along with the creation of the DHS, the TSA, and the implementation of the PATRIOT Act. All of Rumsfeld's Supreme Court nominations were confirmed as well.
The denuclearization of Khorasan scared the governments of Iraq and Libya enough to where both governments would allow UN weapon inspectors without hesitation. It was clear that Rumsfeld wanted a war with Iraq, but with Iraq allowing UN weapon inspectors it was hard to say that Iraq was doing something which required US military intervention (alongside this, pinning Iraq to al-Qaeda was hard because much of al-Qaeda's files, files which would indicate a link to Iraq, were all destroyed in the nuking of Tora Bora).
New York and Washington DC would be rebuilt by 2004, and in the same year Rumsfeld would win re-election by winning every state and 77% of the popular vote (a faithless elector in Washington voted for Brown, preventing Rumsfeld from winning every electoral vote). His second term wouldn't be as smooth as the first.
Rumsfeld would deal with two crises in 2006 - one in East Asia and the other in East Africa. Starting from 2002, the United States and North Korea would engage in on and off again negotiations regarding its nuclear program. As it turned out, the DPRK was a lot more stubborn regarding its nukes then Iraq or Libya was. North Korea would refuse to allow weapons inspectors, and as time went on its nuclear program would progress. It was estimated that it would develop a working nuclear weapon by late 2006. As the deadline progressed, tensions between North Korea and the United States began to increase. The situation became worse when, on May 1st, 2006, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT. A week later, North Korea announced that no more negotiations were to be had over the topic of WMDs. The topic of North Korea would dominate discussion until May 29th, when after months of fighting the Islamic Courts Union took control of Mogadishu, and in the process killed 30 American soldiers. Because America viewed al-Qaeda and Islamist extremist groups as a bigger threat than North Korea, the issue was put on the backburner. The fall of Somalia to Islamist militias meant that, if not properly dealt with, Somalia would provide a safe have for Islamist extremists like how Khorasan did in the late 1990s. However, how America would deal with Somalia was the subject of disagreement in Rumsfeld's cabinet. Some wanted to support an Ethiopian invasion, while others wanted boots on the ground. Rumsfeld was of the latter opinion, while Clark was of the former. This split would lead to Clark's resignation, citing disagreements with the administration.
The deaths of the 30 American soldiers in Mogadishu had led to many Americans support a military intervention in Somalia. al-Qaeda issuing congratulations to the ICU did not do the anti-war movement any favors. With the images of 2/27 fresh in the minds of most Americans, it was clear that an intervention in Somalia was the mainstream option. On June 16th, a UN Security Council Resolution proposed by India, Ethiopia, and the United Kingdom would pass, giving the legal basis for the ATC's intervention in Somalia. Three days later, the bombing began.
Though America had shifted their attention away from North Korea, tensions between the North and South remained. The sinking of a North Korean corvette by a South Korean submarine certainly did no favors to the prospect of peace in the region. On June 24th, North Korea fired a missile into the Sea of Japan, in an attempt to see whether or not it will attract America's attention. America issued a statement of condemnation, but did nothing more than that. To Kim, this signaled that America wasn't willing to defend the South when it was already outstretched in two continents.
The invasion of the south began on July 2nd, and within the first couple of days North Korea was doing pretty good. The invasion had caught the Americans off-guard, leaving the South to defend itself within the first week. However, North Korea's luck did not last long, and once America pulled itself together the Northern advance was pushed back. Alongside this, the US began to target North Korean nuclear facilities. The government of North Korea, fearing that America planned on reunifying the peninsula, used chemical weapons on the advancing US-ROK soldiers on July 12th, killing 677 American soldiers in total, along with 322 South Korean soldiers and 1,000 civilians. The usage of chemical weapons was enough to justify an invasion of the north and the reunification of the peninsula.
The ICU government of Somalia would be toppled by September 1st, the overall consensus being that had it not been for the Second Korean War, it would had been toppled a month earlier. Ethiopia, Somaliland, and the new Somali government would be made members of the ATC, and the War on Terror would expand to Africa. The DPRK began to get desperate as American soldiers began to move on into their territories, and began to throw everything they had at them, from more chemical weapons to suicide attacks. At the end, though, America and the ROK managed to succeed, and on January 31st, 2007, Pyongyang fell. Some North Korean officials fled to Chongjin to continue the war, but with most of the KPA in tatters and with not many people willing to form a militia, it was clear that the war was over. North Korea would be abolished as a geopolitical entity on February 9th.
If the Second Korean War had any effect, it was alienating China and causing a rift within the ATC. The USSR had amicable relations with the North and didn't support the reunification of the peninsula. Alongside this, the fact that the USSR was not given as much influence in the rebuilding of Afghanistan and Pakistan as expected (which was offered to them in exchange for not annexing Chechnya) had led to problems within the ATC. Nevertheless, victory in the Korean Peninsula was enough to convince American policy makers that they were on the right course.
Had Rumsfeld's presidency ended there, he might have been remembered as a decent president. Unfortunately for him, decades of poor economic decision making had shown its effects with the bursting of the housing bubble, leading to a recession late in his second term. The Great Recession, as it would be called, had led to rising unemployment rates, and had hurt Rumsfeld's approval ratings, yet did not make as big of an impact on the 2008 election as an economic crisis would usually do.
[4] - Wesley Clark ran in the 2008 NUP primaries against Vice President Wolfowitz. Though Wolfowitz was leading in the pre-voting stage of 2007-early 2008, the recession had turn things upside down, and Clark would win the support of the liberal and moderate wing of the NUP.
Clark presented himself as a newer, more liberal face of the NUP, and showed a willingness to reform the system. Indeed, his first few years in office would see a dedication to fixing the American economy in the wake of the recession. By 2011, the economy had gotten back on its feet, with America experiencing the first GDP growth since 2008, and with unemployment and inflation down.
Yet that's not what Clark would be remembered for, in the end. Much like his predecessor, his presidency would be dominated by foreign policy. In 2011, after decades upon decades of authoritarianism, economic mismanagement, and a general increase in religiosity, the nations of the Arab World would see a series of uprisings. It started in Tunisia, when street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in reaction to police confiscating his possessions. The public anger over his death soon led to an uprising, which in turn led to the resignation of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Though seen as a positive move for the Arab World at the time, the west soon began to distance itself from it as the uprisings began in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Jordan, Iraq, and Bahrain began to be dominated by religious parties (the first four being religious Sunni parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the last two being religious Shia parties). The uprisings in Egypt succeeded, and the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Morsi would win in the election. The same would happen in Jordan as well. Libya and Syria would both see periods of violence, but both would end in the same way - Gaddafi was killed in a bomb blast on July 18th, and Assad was killed exactly one year and one month later under the same circumstance (this coincidence has led to conspiracies that the two were assassinated, but this wasn't proven). Both Libya and Syria would hold elections, and those elections would be won by Muslim Brotherhood supported candidates. In Bahrain, the revolution was dominated by Shias protesting against the Sunni minority rule emirate, and when it looked like Saudi Arabia was about to crack down on it Iran sent its navy to defend Bahrain's protesters. As Iran began to send its navy, on March 26th a US submarine sank an Iranian warship, killing 90 Iranian sailors.
The sinking of the Iranian warship had led to an increase in tensions between the United States and Iran, but tensions existed before. Of course, hostility began with the hostage crisis in 1979, but starting from 2/27 Iran was on America's radar due to the latter's nuclear program and support for Shia Islamist groups in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. In retaliation for the sinking of the warship, Iran detained two riverine command boats, detaining 20 American service members. Iran refused to release them until America offers negotiations. An American drone flew over the Straits of Hormuz, but was shot down by Iran.
Around this time, the Saudi military, buoyed by American support began to move into Bahrain and crack down on the protesters. The bloody scenes in Manama were shown across Iranian TV, sparking protests against the United States. The Iranian guards meant to hold the 20 Americans were angered at America's support for the crackdown in Bahrain, and in defiance of their superiors began to kill them one by one. The shooting down of the drone, along with the deaths of the 20 American soldiers was enough for America to retaliate against Iran. On April 3rd, the US began to attack IRGC radar and missile sites. War had begun.
America could not count on the support of the entire ATC, or even NATO. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia offered their support for America, but France and Germany's refusal to enter had caused a rift within the two organizations. The USSR outright condemned America, hurting the ATC even further.
As this was going on, Iraq was beginning to fall apart as the Qusay Hussain regime was trying (and failing) to crack down on the Shia and Kurdish protestors. Any other time, America would've intervened in Iraq, but seeing as how much of the Iraqi Opposition was sympathetic or outright in full support of Iran, America stepped aside. As the Iraqi Civil War was occurring, many Shia Arab militias in Iraq would receive support from Iran, and vice versa.
The Iran War was much slower than the intervention in the AfPak or Somalia. In the time it took to overthrow the Islamist governments of those two countries, all America took was Bandar Abbas, Bandar Langeh, Chabahar, and Bushehr - all cities in the Iranian south. The anti-war movement in America, which for a long time had been attacked for being "weak" at best or "terror supporters" at worst, rebounded with the War in Iran, and had entered the mainstream. This was shown in the 2012 elections, in which the Peace & Freedom Party had its best election performance, with 160 electoral votes, while the NUP had its worse, with it only winning 350 electoral votes.
By June 2013, American soldiers had reached Tehran. The Iranian military had fortified itself in the city, and as a result the battle for control over the city would stretch months (the underground insurgency across Iran didn't help America at all). After months of fighting which resembled Sarajevo in the mid 1990s, on January 8th, 2014, Tehran was captured. But much as how the fall of Kabul, Islamabad, and Mogadishu didn't end the war there, neither would the fall of Tehran. As America tried to nation-build Iran, the daily casualty rate for US soldiers was in the triple digits. The War in Iran seemed like a good idea at the time, but by the end of Clark's term appeared to be nothing more than a mistake. The ATC only existed in name, NATO had gone through a rift, and the economy, though not reverting to recession levels was certainly not doing good. Clark would leave office an unpopular man.
[5] - The 2016 election ended with nobody winning a majority of the electoral college. The election was sent to the House, and the stark NUP majorities made McChrystal President.
This didn't mean he was popular, though. McChrystal continued the War in Iran, making the NUP the only party to support the war. McChrystal would preside over an America which was growing more and more hostile to his ideology, his type of politics, and to the entire political establishment in general. It was clear now that the "bloody shirt" of 2/27 was no longer enough to rally Americans around the NUP, and with an entire generation of people who couldn't even remember the attacks, all grown up, the future for the party looked bleak.
The unpopularity of the party was shown when, in April 2017 the US launched a series of airstrikes on Shia militia positions in Iraq. By then, Iraq had been under de facto partition - the Qusay regime held the Sunni Arab parts, the Iraqi Opposition was in control of the Shia south, and the Kurds achieved independence in all but name. Neither side could advance into an area which was dominated by people not of the same ethnicity or sect, and it seemed like they didn't want to. Though the McChrystal administration did not plan for anything more than mere airstrikes, but news of the airstrikes prompted large anti-war rallies for the next two weeks, which was not expected by anyone in the administration.
The final nail in the coffin for the party was when allegations began to surface that Vice President Petreaus had an illegitimate child with a journalist began to surface. Petreaus had first denied it, but was forced to relent a week later, and issued his resignation when his wife filed for divorce. The scandal represented every problem people had with the NUP, and led to its shellacking in the 2018 midterms, where it lost 200 seats. The NUP's defeat in the midterms had forced it to rebrand. Seeing as how there was no crisis like there was in 2001, the rhetoric of the nation uniting under one party didn't hold much water as it did then. As such, it rebranded into the Peoples' Party, in the sense that the party represented the American people in general (it didn't).
McChrystal chose not to run for re-election, saying that he was reluctant to run in the first place and that the stress of the past four years led to him deciding he did not want another four years in office.
[6] - There were a lot of things similar in the AFP and P&F campaigns. Both desired an end to the wars in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia, both desired the abolition of the electoral college, and both desired an end to the past two decades of NUP/PP control.
Grayson and Stewart traded places in the polls, and if one thing was certain, Barkley would not win the election. Grayson began to build up a solid lead by mid-October until allegations of domestic abuse began to surface by late October. Though Grayson denied it, the allegations were enough to sink his campaign, and the Confederate flag defender Governor Corey Stewart narrowly squeaked by in the electoral college, though lost the popular vote by three points.
In the end, it didn't matter who would win. The 2020s would mark the beginning of a new world order, not one of American dominance as George H. W. Bush thought it would be in 1991, but a more multipolar world. The Soviet Union under Ivan Melnikov began to buddy up with the Pink Wave states of Latin America, along increasingly neo-Maoist PRC, which is currently setting its sights towards Taiwan. Though many of Stewart's surrogates engaged in conspiracy theories that American Muslims were trying to implement Islamic law in America, the planned withdrawal from the Middle East and East Africa meant that groups which actually desired a theocracy would be victorious, bringing millions of people under their dominion. It was only the People's Party which desired a unipolar world, with America at top. Neither Grayson nor Stewart cared much about that.
2/27 began an era in world history, an era which took up a fifth of the 21st century, and the 2020 election ended said era. The ideology of the NUP, that of liberal internationalism and of American exceptionalism, was firmly discredited. Now various ideologies across the world battle for dominance, and America would rather stay out of that fight. But whether or not remaining neutral is something to be desired, or something which is even possible for a country like America is for another time.