“With a whimper rather than a bang, the world has become a different place than it was in January 2021, when Donald Trump left office.” That is how Victor Davis Hanson begins his commentary about the world that has been made anew. Here are just a few of the significant changes around the world.

In this hemisphere, not only has Venezuela changed, but several Latin American countries have swung from communism with pro-American administrations. And China is no longer attempting to control the Panama Canal.

Many commentators simply refer to the Middle East as a quagmire. Victor David Hanson reminds us that Israel has been providing intelligence and missile defense to the Muslim Gulf states. As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis have been weakened economically and militarily. Russia lost its last client in the Middle East with the fall of the Assad regime. The Strait of Hormuz remains a choke point, but its significance will diminish because existing pipelines are being expanded and others are under construction to bypass the Strait entirely.

The war in Ukraine continues, but the US has been allowing the country to manufacture Patriot missiles and to strike targets inside Russia. And it is worth noting that Russia is now at its weakest political, economic, and military condition in decades.

China is also stagnating. It is burdened by a dangerously low fertility rate while importing three-fourths of the daily oil consumption, nearly half of its natural gas, and a third of its daily food.

In many strategic ways, the world is very different from what it was five years ago. We shouldn’t lose sight of these differences.