1. The way that I have been thinking about this is that there are two things happening at once. One is what gets most of the attention - the broad decline in US "leadership" (which here stands in for US unwillingness to support the order that it's created)
2. The second is the disintegration of the US policy process. Trump governs in a highly personalist style, better befitting one of the more mediocre Renaissance princelings than a modern administrator - crookedtimber.org/2016/11/20/kis…. This results in policy incoherence.
3. The point is that the two can work at cross purposes. Lack of "leadership" at the top co-exists with administrative chaos, which means _both_ that it is hard to get concerted action, _and_ that the more independent minded branches of the state can sometimes do their own thing.
4. The Fed - which is heavily insulated - is the obvious example. But there are also other parts of the government that have pursued their own bureaucratic agendas, for example in sanctions policy, which is often apparently at odds with the overall direction of administration.
