The world forgot it existed in a unipolar world. However, there's no doubting what the world is now: it's the United States versus everyone else, and the world order that we dictate from that determines everything. For decades, the United States has had to deal with countries chipping away at the advantages we have everywhere, but that's at an end.

America is turning 250 years old, and in that time, the global order has radically changed. When we were born, Europe was the center of the universe. France helped us against the British because it was part of the great power competition there. Subsequent generations bought the land that now makes up the continental United States, and we expanded to Alaska and Hawaii in the 20th Century.

As we grew, the first major foreign policy doctrine was the Monroe Doctrine. Essentially, it said America was keeping to our side of the world and staying away from Europe, specifically. The undercurrent of distrust that makes up the European continent is constantly changing, always fighting, and rarely trustworthy for more than a generation or two.

That changed in the 20th Century. Two world wars and the ensuing Cold War conflict with Russia saw power flip radically. The United States went from a regional power to the dominant global superpower. We never asked for this spot, but it is what we are.

The United States and its military might won both global wars, and that, combined with a massive economic advantage, ended the Cold War without a shot being fired. The Soviets couldn't even compete with our grocery stores, let alone our military. The collapse of the Soviet Union shocked the planet and sent the world into a new era: the unipolar American reality.

Since the 1990s, various forces have eroded that advantage. Communist China and Putin's Russia have attempted to regain a footing. Terrorist states in the Middle East have launched numerous attacks against us and our allies. And for the most part, America has just taken these hits in stride. We're so more advanced that every country on earth that the chipping away of our power was seen as a joke domestically.

That has changed in recent decades as the Chinese have closed various gaps and attempted to strangle aspects of the United States' economy, both in manufacturing and in raw materials like rare earths, which are critical to America's technological advantage over everyone else.

The second Trump administration has forced the world to recognize an uncomfortable reality: it is still a unipolar world, and everyone else. This is not a moment of "great power" competition; it is literally the United States versus everyone else.

I listen to some of the liberals cry on social media and claim, "What Trump did to Maduro could happen to the United States now!"

No, it couldn't. No other country on earth could do what the United States just did to Venezuela. Paid Cubans were protecting Maduro's government, with Russian military equipment at the ready (we'd been parking our military at his doorstep for months), and Chinese tech powering radars and more. Iran had parked drone manufacturing in Venezuela. Venezuela had its own "coalition of the willing" to protect Maduro.

None of it mattered. The United States military made it all worthless. Russia's equipment was useless, the Chinese radars were blind, and Iran's tech was immobilized in minutes. The destruction was so thorough it made Israel's dominance of Iran look like a long-term invasion - and the Israelis refueled their planes over Tehran.

The United States hit Maduro so quickly that he couldn't even hole up in a safe room.

There is no other country on earth that can do that. In one military act, Russia, China, and Europe were reminded that the global superpower is the United States. And we can and will defend ourselves and dictate terms on our level.

International law exists only because we acknowledge it through our power. The Navy enforces the global trade treaties that the United States is party to. The Navy, Army, Air Force, and the growing Space Force enable international trade.

The world economic order isn't free by accident. It's what it is because we demand it.

Europe has no response to Russia's war in Ukraine. The only country that is working on that conflict in any meaningful way is the United States. The only country that keeps China from attempting to dominate the seas is America. The country that helped beat back the scourge of Islamic terrorism.

America is not a "global police force" by accident. We are the most powerful economy, military, and populace on the planet. And it's not close. Europe is a vassal state that can't defend itself from Russia (a Russian military that was made to look wholly incompetent in Ukraine and Venezuela).

When America joins the field, it joins to win. Many prognosticators in conflicts between the United States and Russia/China/the rest assume that those countries can counter U.S. tech. What we're rapidly learning in Iran and Venezuela is that Russia and China are severely behind.

That's not a sign that America should back down because we have a significant lead, far from it. We should forge ahead. But it is to say this: the world was reminded who the global superpower is and what we can do when we choose to.

And if you don't like that, the alternatives are clear. America doesn't have many interests, but we do defend what is ours. China and Russia seek domination across the globe and to spread their authoritarianism everywhere. America is the global superpower the world needs, whether it wants to admit that or not.

If that ever vanishes, the world will get immeasurably darker.