That's all true and certainly influences how Russia believes they can deal with us. They sense the obvious confused absence of political will, political agreement on almost anything...foreign policy, fiscal issues, domestic social issues, etc. Add to that our obviously compromised military capability and you have the formula for the rest of the world having less reason to listen to what the U.S. thinks or wants. Heck, even Israel seems to be heading off in its own direction, almost forcing us to frantically try to negotiate with Iran in the hope we can prevent Israel from launching an attack. Then we have a POTUS who clearly is looking more "outwards" despite the lack if political support. And a candidate trying to replace him whose foreign policy is more inward-looking and brutally hawkish than we've seen in decades.

Yeah, someone better figure out who we want the U.S. to be when we grow up.