WASHINGTON: Global politics is a tailspin and there is no telling when and how it will land.Hours after US President Donald Trump returned home to harsh reviews of his Middle-East and Europe after a "nine-days-that-shook-the-world" trip, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has embarked on a four-nation, six-day tour in a moment of great flux in world affairs, having seen Trump kiss up to the sundry authoritarian rulers while dissing democracies in Europe.Trump tantrums in Europe last week has led German's Chancellor Angela Merkel to observe that "The times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over" and Europe "really must take our fate into our own hands."The remarks, made at a packed beer hall rally in Munich hours after Trump returned to US - and just before she welcomed Modi on his European tour - has stunned American pundits long steeped in the United States' Atlanticist loyalties arising from victory in World War Two.The seemingly seismic changes are still being assessed in Washington but the early reviews are critical."Rather than speak to leaders from the 28 nations of which NATO is comprised, Trump instead, it appeared, spoke to his base," the Daily Beast noted in a tough critique of the visit, pointing out that aside from scolding Nato nations for not paying their dues (small beer compared to US military expenditure), the US President also withheld commitment to defend Nato countries from aggression (mainly from Russia) - all this while endorsing the primacy of an odious monarchy in the Middle East."The only form of offensive action Trump seemed to endorse during the event (in Europe), it seemed, was shoving the prime minister of Montenegro," it said, in a snarky reference to the widely-viewed footage showing Trump slithering through European leaders milling around, and preening smugly before cameras.Such footage, including his bobe-crushing handshake with France's Macron accounts of how Trump disdained European leaders while choosing to travel in a golf buggy when the rest were walking, has dismayed foreign policy traditionalists used to US Presidents being respectful and graceful towards foreign leaders. In contrast, Trump they say, has come across as a school yard bully.Revealing the growing disenchantment even in the traditional US bureaucracy with the Trump dispensation, it also quoted an unnamed State Department official as saying, "When it comes to diplomacy, President Trump is a drunk tourist. Loud and tacky, shoving his way around the dance floor. He steps on others without realizing it. It's ineffectual."One former US envoy to NATO went so far as to say an era in US.-European relations appears to be over. "The president's failure to endorse Article 5 in a speech at NATO headquarters, his continued lambasting of Germany and other allies on trade, his apparent decision to walk away from the Paris climate agreement - all suggest that the United States is less interested in leading globally than has been the case for the last 70 years," Nato expert Ivo Daalder was quoted as saying.None of this is surprising. Trump has said more than once in the past that he is elected as the President of the United States, not of rest of the world.On his Twitter feed, Trump boasted on his return that the European trip "was a great success for America. Hard work but big results!" even as he lawyered up and hunkered down to defend his aides' and family ties to Russia.

Just returned from Europe. Trip was a great success for America. Hard work but big results! & mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2017