How does America recover from this? Obscene amounts spent on military, large standing army, powerful allies, all to project power. But they’ve had their arses handed to them in Syria and Afghanistan in a short period now. Will anybody take power projection from a military that can’t even hold rag tag groups of rebels to stalemates seriously? America is just another nuclear power now, which is obviously still very powerful, but with nothing to really distinguish themselves from any other nuclear power. Fun times ahead as other powerful countries recognise this and start making more power plays themselves.