Let's have no illusions; the US since the end of WWII through its actions all over the world has become the most sinister entity in the world.
You certainly wouldn't see or hear it put that way by our politicos or their handmaidens in the corporate media who in tandem have indoctrinated, propagandized and insulated the American people from most of the horror the US state commits in our name beyond our borders.
Keeping those horrors from the people was a lesson learned from the images sent back from the Viet Nam war and shown on American TV screens. Not anymore. Since the end of that war none of the carnage we commit in our wars is permitted to be shown. Even filming caskets of our dead military returning to Dover AFB in Delaware is strictly forbidden.
As for the American people many (most?) haven't consciously transcended the "official" propaganda or as Arundhati Roy put it, "Swallow the propaganda so obediently". So it's not hard to imagine most support our wars, embrace the use of drones-no Americans dying- and don't seem concerned when "foreign" innocents are killed and maimed as "collateral damage" in our drone strikes. Only "officially" sanctioned announcements of Americans dying may elicit some immediate reaction by people.
Under these circumstances only the alternative media will present a more factual picture of events so the people can become informed of what's really happening in the world.
For example there was no "official" airing by the corporate MSM in America of Russian President Vladimir Putin addressing an international economic forum in St. Petersburg, Russia telling heads of international news agencies, "People do not understand how potentially dangerous the situation really is". This in reference to NATO placing ballistic missile systems in Romania. Any mention of these systems in our corporate media are strictly portrayed as defensive. Yet Putin explained these missiles could easily be changed to offensive missiles, aimed directly at Russia without the local government knowing. He explained "People in the West are oblivious to the dangers of potential global war". All the above was presented by RT news, then picked up and aired in the alternative media.
Russia and China are the only countries capable of derailing the madness that has gripped a neo-con led "official" Washington and the madness of fomenting regime change in all countries that resist US hegemony over them.
That madness of fomenting regime change can take many shapes, color revolutions, coups, "hybrid" wars, media campaigns within countries impugning its leaders of corruption, instigating protests with agent-provocateurs infiltrating and co-opting legitimate protests, NGO's fomenting dissent along with local elites against the legitimate government in the name of promoting "democracy" and spreading rumors of "human rights" violations, instigating false flag attacks and blaming the government. All this from a country that is the greatest human rights violator the world has ever seen.
Now that madness has gone so far as to directly provoke Russia and China, the two nuclear powers capable of destroying the US in a retaliatory strike.
In the cold war there was acceptance by both the US and the Soviet Union of "MAD", mutually assured destruction, where each country acknowledged it would be destroyed in a retaliatory strike.
Apparently neo-con Washington has scrapped "MAD" with the absurd idea of winning a nuclear war.
Let's end this short piece with these words. ANY nuclear war is unwinnable. Russia and China will not succumb to US hegemony. Neither will initiate a nuclear first strike but will destroy the US in a retaliatory strike if the US initiates a nuclear war, even with so called limited "tactical" nuclear weapons.
Russia and China are not the threat; we are.