The Last 4 Years and the Coming Decade 5

Because some troubles and faults left by last administration, the incumbent can try to restore or redress. But for some other questionable moves beyond recantation, the incumbent can only conduct limited control on their irreversible tracks or bring petty patches to their honeycombed surfaces so the detriment and jeopardy caused thereby can be diminished to the lowest possible level. Anyway, it seems to be faring much better, at least in terms of psychological consolation, to lock the barn door after the horse bolted than to get nothing recuperative done at all. Yes, they may deliver a lot of efforts to assuage home scars and mend fences with allies, but it will be a herculean task to minimize the negative influence of that dead hand and to make good on head starts lost in many fields over this period. Having freshly taken over a nation severely depleted due to a series of adverse factors including the abovementioned, though, the incumbent are in the mood to resort to immense currency watering for instant stimulation of internal economy without precautionary preview for future moment of reckoning; in the mood to tackle both major rivals simultaneously without worrying about spreading themselves too thin. They're still overestimating themselves, they're still overextending themselves. Around the arctic sky, strategic bombers project their dark wings onto angelic white snows, from Barents Sea to Alaska; Near the equator belt, flagrant fleets foist dazy turbidity upon placid streams, from the Strait of Malacca to Philippine oceanic trenches. The rifts between allies yet to recover, the ruptures between adversaries already widened. An all-around arm-wrestling between a few superpowers in which armament race and hi-tech competition oriented thereto take up quite a considerable portion will inevitably strike out massive involvement of many other countries. The third decade of the 21st century is now under way, gradually unfolding deontic deterioration, shifty shakes and perilous portent down the pike that are bound to overshadow the peace and prosperity of the entire human community. History will bear it out.