alt Hacker News>I don't see any positive outcome for the west in general. Europe in particular is screwed but besides short-term gains I don't think the US is going to be able to sustain anything but very fragile and transactional alliances, if any.
Europe became the forefront of human civilization, the home of the renaissance and the industrial revolution, because of internal competition between states (as opposed to the large centralized autocracies of Asia and the Middle East). In the long term more competition will ultimately be a good thing for Europe, forcing it to stop resting on its laurels, to start innovating and growing again.
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Now we compete with the whole world. I don't see much "resting in its laurels" nowadays. Have you traveled across Europe the last decade?
There's no resting, just a declive.
> In the long term more competition will ultimately be a good thing for Europe
Leaving aside the deaths of millions of people through warfare, then, maybe, but still doubtful.