Trump overreaches, replacing leadership with threats

 

Gordon L. Weil

It all boils down to “common good” versus “liberty” – the community interest against individual interests.

In his farewell New York Times column, David Brooks suggested that the growth of individual freedom has become an end in itself, undermining the sense of a national community.

President Trump did not invent this development, but he took advantage of it and nourished it. He could hate his political opponents, making compromise impossible. 

Last week, at the Munich Security Conference, the same thinking was starkly applied to the world community.

The U.S. favors nationalism for itself and advocates it for others.  It promotes the same selfish concept of compromise abroad as at home:  we will treat you decently if you agree to follow our demands, which are admittedly made in our own best interests.

After World War II, the U.S., as the world’s greatest power, became the center of the political system based on agreed rules.  The so-called “rules-based order” was meant to place agreed limits on the behavior of nations in their relations with one another.  From an American viewpoint, it could serve to keep the U.S. out of other people’s wars.

The U.S. backed international organizations that were meant to enforce the rules and create conditions favorable to them.  The prime example was the United Nations, created under American auspices.  It also supported the European Union that could bind France and Germany into a relationship making it impossible for them again to war against one another.

On the domestic level, the Democrats and Republicans might differ, but they could find compromises that met the public’s interest in stable and reliable government.  Both parties respected the understandings that had grown up around the constitutional system.

On the international level, the rules-based system expanded and cooperation grew.  American security was served both by its help to others and their dependence on it for the maintenance of the system.

Nationalism was regarded as a threat to peace and should be replaced by joint action.  This concept faced serious challenges as nations and individuals began to enjoy the benefits of the rules-based order and prosperity.  It was something like the person who stops taking their medication because they think themselves cured, only to relapse.

The UN quickly faltered as the Soviet Union rejected its influence.  The EU had proclaimed supranationalism as its goal, with nations conceding powers to a central agency.   But nationalism began to grow again, keeping Europe half-finished.  In the extreme case of Hungary, the challenge is boldly asserted.

Trump’s America First policy means that U.S. power, used to enforce the rules-based order, would be deployed to seek American advantage wherever it could be obtained even by force or the threat of force.  The U.S. would pay only lip-service to UN reform and scorn the EU in the hope that their national interests would return its members to American subservience.

A year ago, Vice President JD Vance had taken an aggressive and threatening tone in addressing the Munich conference.  His approach did not work.  This year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent the same message but sugar-coated it with meaningless and faintly racist assurances of common outlook.  His approach did not work.

Trump had overreached, replacing leadership with menace.  He became an overt fellow traveler of Russian President Putin, Europe’s obvious adversary.  He threatened the independence of Canada, America’s neighbor and closest ally.  He attacked the EU.  He freely invaded Venezuela and bombed Iran.

But the ultimate issue that told the world that Trump’s America could not be trusted was his demand to be given or to take Greenland, part of the Kingdom of Denmark.  That country has been a committed American ally and was willing to accept a major U.S. role in Greenland.  But Trump’s cold aggression gave Europe a permanent chill.   Rubio could not warm it up.

The results may not be his desired world of small nations leaving its future to the US, China and Russia.  Europe has been given the incentive to find common ground on building a common defense under a common policy and in building a more efficient and less bureaucratic EU.

Similarly, on the national level, Trump has also overreached.  He has lost his popularity on all major issues but most notably on immigration, his hallmark.  He mistakenly believed that opposition to excessive immigration meant that most Americans wanted to expel immigrants who would undermine white political domination.  His approach did not work.

At home, Trump could turn to seeking practical solutions instead of pursing his personal agenda.  If he doesn’t, after 2028, they could begin taking his name off buildings.

Cooperation and compromise have become dirty words for authoritarians, nationalists and the MAGA movement.  They fail to understand that nations and individuals can freely decide on acting together to pursue common interests.

Trump's National Security Strategy would reshape world

 

Gordon L. Weil

Welcome to neo-isolationism.

The 1940 version of America First was pure isolationism.  The U.S. could prosper and avoid events in the rest of the world, buffered by the two largest oceans.  Then, the aircraft of militaristic Japan and the submarines of Nazi Germany eliminated the buffers and silenced American isolationism.

America First is back.   The new National Security Strategy states, “the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.”   The new buffer is not mere oceans, but entire continents – South America and Europe.   Projecting President Trump’s sense of victimhood, the Strategy focuses on bringing them into line with the U.S.

The purpose of the Strategy is “[t]o ensure that America remains the world’s strongest, richest, most powerful, and most successful country for decades to come….”  Other countries should help ensure the success of American objectives.

The Monroe Doctrine warned Europe against seeking to regain control in newly liberated Latin America.  The U.S. would protect it from foreign intervention.   That the U.S. might gain unwanted dominance in some of these nations was largely ignored.  Generally, the policy worked, and Latin America became heavily dependent on the U.S.

In Europe, the situation was strikingly different.  Deep historical, national rivalries led to brutal armed conflict.   Despite American hopes of avoiding Europe’s wars, the U.S. followed Britain and others into two conflicts, which became world wars, and tipped the balance against the aggressors.

After the Second World War, the U.S. sought to create ways of preventing another European conflict.  NATO would serve as an integrated military command opposing growing Soviet expansion, and the European Union would interconnect economies there so tightly that war would become impossible.   The U.S. strongly backed both.

Elsewhere in the world, America’s enormous economic and military power enabled it to dominate.  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Pax Americana reigned.  Given supposed U.S. benevolence, some analysts thought it might last for good.  But, as America aided others to grow their economies, it reduced its own influence.

Trump came to believe that “American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country.”  Their belief, he found, was contrary to the wishes of the American people.

From the outset, Trump argued that the U.S. was bearing too much of the cost of defending Europe and other allies.  He was correct that, in virtually all cases, other countries depended on the U.S. for their national defense and for the pursuit of their shared foreign policy objectives.

But his military posture does not cut American defense spending.  His trade policy, aimed at making the U.S. more self-sufficient, raises domestic market costs.  America First is worth it.  Added government debt would be paid later by another president.

In his view, the world would be dominated by the U.S., China and Russia.  Though it has no legitimate claim to such a role, Russia rattled its nuclear arms and boldly invaded Georgia and Ukraine, meeting little external resistance.  Trump recognized that Europe and the U.S. had opted for appeasement not opposition.  He admires Putin’s style, readily giving ground.

Trump can succeed in making his Strategy happen.  The historical tragedy is that Europe completely failed to take advantage of its potential to become a unified economic, political and military force.  European unity lost its grand goals and became technocratic.  It could offer no balance or constraint on the U.S. 

Europe’s demon is nationalism.  European unity, was once a lofty hope, has been lost in successive waves of nationalism, as best demonstrated by Brexit.  Just as with Trump in the U.S., European governments are moving to the right, stressing national identity.  Instead of waning, nationalism is gaining.

The Trump administration encourages Europe’s trend to the right.  If it comes to share Trumpian values and beliefs, he expects that it will align more closely with American policy.  If it insists on going its own independent way, he might withdraw U.S. protection of Europe.

Trump wants Europe to boost its military strength and no longer lean on the U.S., though that would increase European independence from American leadership.  As with other Trump policies like trade, the more he succeeds, the more he reduces U.S. influence. 

Europe should have learned from the Ukraine experience that it must defend its continent and can no longer rely heavily on the U.S.  Trump sees only three great powers to the exclusion of any rivals.  So far, the Europe-based “coalition of the willing” is not a new power, but just brave talk.    

Ukraine gives Europe a new opportunity to forge unity, though the effort requires painful political and economic compromises and sacrifices. Otherwise, Europe won’t become a fourth great power, leaving unchallenged the authoritarian trio sanctified in Trump’s Strategy.