CNN's Meanwhile in America, the daily email about US politics for global readers. This was originally published in the November 8 edition of, the daily email about US politics for global readers. Sign up here to receive it every weekday morning.

(CNN) This may be the dawn of the post-post-Cold War era.

The fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago this weekend was a triumph of Western ideology purchased by American power. Freedom's torch was borne throughout the Cold War by US Presidents from Harry S Truman to George H.W. Bush, and their mission delivered when delirious East Berliners breached the wall that split their city for decades.

Ironically, now the greatest threat to the ensuing Pax Americana is another US President: Donald Trump. And the beneficiary is a former Dresden-based KGB officer who once despaired at the Iron Curtain's demise: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump disdains NATO, created after World War II to deter armed conflict and underwrite Western power and values, and has blasted it as an "obsolete" protection racket. He's also dismissed its economic cousin, the European Union, as a "foe."

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