Our situation is only somewhat analogous, mainly in terms merely of domestic political magnitude, to that of 1789.
Similarly, also, there were well established advanced regimes surrounding France in 1789.
But they were mobilizing to take retribution on an upstart, very dissimilar from today.
Further differences today include:
There are now well established, powerful, both western and nonwestern regimes (each oriented intracivilizationally rather than West-dynastically), dotting the globe, not necessarily favoring political unrest or military action, here or anywhere, but intent if necessary on 'capitalizing' geopolitically on any American upheaval, just as they have since the 1950s in connection with the 'economic' slide in that direction.
Although some analysts I can think of say no one today has designs on military hegemony (weak militaries everywhere, trading partners, strategic partners, etc.), WSJ today, has a China versus US article, example of growing adversarial relationship, coming as a 'surprise' to a naive US administration; China moving ahead aggressively on advanced weapons systems, tougher talk; just as US and USSR ostensibly moving in opposite direction.
(Give me a break. These developments have been on the cards now for decades.)
One enormous difference, at a glance, 1789 versus now, is that there is not a 'fixed' ancien regime, longstanding if tottering, against which the French revolution rebelled, among these regimes today; but rather a suppressed but well founded civilizational suspicion, often based on age old rivalries, of each toward every other, and powerful vested or emerging interests, in every case inevitably affected by substantial shifts in the advantage of any other, particularly regarding rapidly waning global natural resources.
No one elsewhere is likely to mimic any revolutionary regime change happening here, unless they have a major hand in fashioning it,
because, for one thing, contrary to popular opinion here, they generally weren't sold on our existing (so called) political system in the first place, except as an economic market victim of now waning importance to them (sucked out like a weasel),
and what we replace it with is otherwise unlikely to be adopted as a model abroad.
Certainly they will not look in future to America as either a market or a source of technological expertise, except perhaps military technology.
Most of them have now taken most of our technology worth having, by gift, theft, license, or other voluntary transfer.
As Schama (one of my least favorites) points out, in The History of Britain, the Romans' main conquest question was usually:
What is there there worth having?
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