The United States ended up becoming the leader of the (western) world because the leaders in Europe were such a mess that their ultimate actions could only lead to fighting each other.
Had the powerful nations in Europe not been so destructive to themselves and their neighbors, then the USA would not have gotten the chance to take the lead.
The benefit of this perhaps strange vantage point is that we can see how the USA was never a well-established nation all by itself/for itself. It was due to the much greater and horrible imperfections of Europe that the USA ended up being seen as the more stable haven to go to (for people, for investors, but also for political and military solutions).
Would the USA have made it on its own? Let’s investigate.
What most folks in the USA consider the American norm is actually the greater prosperity shared in the 1950s to 1970s and this was actually not put in place by our politicians working well together. It got put in place due to disaster.
1929 put an enormous stress on the world, and the Great Depression caused the New Deal to come into place. Without 1929, we would not have had a New Deal. The politicians would have never agreed to the New Deal had it not been for the Great Depression.
Without a New Deal, we would not have had 40 years of building the American dream, holding on to it for another 40 years, and now we are well into the breakdown of that norm.
That was yet another example to show how the USA got here due to circumstances plus having this great potential of course. But don't look at the basic foundation of what makes the USA have all these problems today, because (in effect) the USA's basics were never good; they were always winner-take-all, always based on pleasing the elite. We are simply sliding down a hill until we reach our more natural foundation again after having climbed up and up to what was our better selves. The much bigger failures of others and our reacting to large-scale but home-made disasters got us to that higher level. Now we are slowly slip-sliding back to our natural state.
When disaster strikes do we act. We are NOT a nation that prepares for disaster. We do not act with foresight, we react in hindsight. Compared to other rich nations, our politicians sit on their hands and after a while they sit on their hands a little more. Our leaders are not proactive and actually love to deregulate (Republicans deregulate the Democratic points, Democrats deregulate the Republican points).
Fast forward to today, and the Euro and China are actually undermining the USA's top position as well. Then, China together with India, we are looking at the future super powers (Russia is on its very last legs), and hopefully if these nations are smart then the geopolitical world can turn into a multi-node reality instead of our having this mono-polar or bipolar world of super powers. When all nations behave better, then there is less need for a global policeman. Who knows, the UN may be able to become a stronger political tool if we rework it?
The USA is slowly getting back to its basic natural state, we are slowly sliding toward it. Our natural state (in effect) is cowboy capitalism, which is rule of the strongest, winner-take-all. I can show more about this from various perspectives, but just one more quick note how our legal system is overstepping itself big time, and our politicians being sleeping beauties at best. We are not well-organized, not well-educated, not looking in the mirror all that often. The elite is of course in much better shape, but the population at large does not benefit enough, the center more than the bottom. We are left telling each other we are the best and that lulls us asleep until the next disaster.
Let me push this comment to the limit: The USA and the UK when taken all by themselves, they are Lord of the Flies moderated. The rule of law is not followed in this nation because the elite makes up their own laws and the rest then gives up on following the laws, too, that is, until caught when the line in the sand declares we must (re)act.
Lord of the Flies is a (black&white) answer, but it is an answer. Once we have that answer, we can start looking for solutions.
