The US is way too predictable. It makes it extremely easy for someone to outmaneuver us. That’s the reason China and Russia backed off when Trump was in office. He was a wild card.
snipped meme
There's a good reason the formerly pacifist Liberals are now cheering for violence and war.
In the 60s and 70s, they saw themselves as outside the establishment, rebelling against the warmongering, capitalist pigs of the Right.
Now that they have political power, they want to destroy all that remains of the Right Wing they protested against for decades.
They are too caught up in Leftist Socialist-Progressive ideology to see that they are now doing what they protested against.
Power corrupts, as they say, and the "pacificists" are not immune, as recent history has shown -- i.e. Obama intentionally droning US citizens while in a foreign country.