Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about Trump, Europe, and the world's police.

We've got a really interesting question that gets to the heart of a pretty major shift that's occurring.

Here's the message.

Bell, there's one thing I'm not really clear

on. For 50 years, the U.S. has been the country that would maintain the status quo. The status

quo isn't always great, but it's predictable. The world just acknowledged that it was the job of the U.S. to maintain waterways, shipping routes,

airspace, and everything like that. The world backed up the U.S. when we acted, especially Europe,

and European countries today are the loudest critics of us acting to secure the waterway.

Do they just hate Trump that much?

Or is there a reason they're acting against their own interests?

Right. And it's really been longer than 50 years.

Ever since the end of World War II,

the U.S. was the defender of the status quo for much of the world.

The world's policemen. Prior to its collapse, the Soviet Union was the cop in the next town over.

It's worth acknowledging that the status quo isn't great, or fair, or just, but it's predictable. For nation states,

predictability is important, because while the system isn't just, it's a system with rules,

both spoken, like, say, the Geneva Conventions or other international laws and agreements and unspoken rules.

Don't touch our boats and don't nationalize Western oil interests.

It gave countries around the world a sort of framework to operate within.

This led to the framing of a rules-based international order.

Of course, the rules were decided by the most powerful countries, with the most powerful economies.

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