One can't completely deny America's centrality in the world, but we are, relatively speaking, much less important than we used to be. A lot of those "poor" countries - big and small - aren't poor anymore. Our big sticks are still there, of course, but our carrots, especially ones dangled by the Mad King, aren't as valuable as they once were. Any transition is complicated and potentially costly, but China and India (for example) really don't
need the US.
