The Trump administration's rebellion against history and common sense

Daily Maverick

21 hours ago

The idea that America faces an inexorable, irreversible decline has become a form of conventional wisdom. Is this really true — or is it becoming so because of poor policy choices being made by its leadership?
The woods are filling up with descriptions in sombre periodicals like The Economist, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy on the inexorable decline of America and what the implications of such a decline will be for the global power dynamic.
In essence, one way to see the question being framed is whether we will, soon enough, have a Hobbesian universe or a world according to Jacques Rousseau in our future. Or, put another way, will life in the world, soon enough, be one that is nasty, brutish, and short, or one where the nations will sing Kumbaya in 195-part harmony — one where all those metaphorical lions will be lying down peaceably with those metaphorical lambs?
In fact, in most of the articles that are looking forward to that wondrous, brave new world, the assumption is that America's decline has become an axiomatic inevitability. Moreover, for some writing about such a future tantalisingly just beyond the horizon, such an eventuality is to be eagerly anticipated, in contrast to that American-led, rules-based order (albeit unevenly exercised) that exists now.
One can almost feel the schadenfreude emanating from this geopolitical version of 'The Wizard of Oz' chant, 'Hail, hail the witch is dead; the wicked witch is dead.' Beyond articles, there is even a cottage industry of books on this subject, such as Amitav Acharya's recently published, The Once and Future World Order.
Post-Vietnam
But it should also be recalled that this discussion is something of a reprise of the conversation that became the authorised version of things in the aftermath of the Vietnam conflict.
Back in the mid-1970s, it was confidently assumed — even predicted as inevitable — that America's best days could only be seen via a rear view mirror rather than looking forward. Henry Luce's 'American century' was already en route to the rubbish tip. But were there really strong reasons to assume the decline of America in the future was axiomatic and inevitable — and that renewal was impossible?
(In fact, the decline of nations and civilisations has been the subject of debate by philosophers and historians for millennia. The ancient Greeks had divided history into gold, silver, and bronze ages as the greatness of the past inevitably declined to the less valuable alloy of the present. St Augustine, in his volume, The City of God, had argued that the decline of Rome in his time was not, despite pagan critics, the fault of the spread of Christianity. Instead, that faith had helped preserve the Empire, even in its weakened state. More recent writers like Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire had insisted that its internal contradictions and religious and cultural divisions had inevitably led to its downfall. And after the destruction of World War 1, Oswald Spengler had insisted in The Decline of the West that the civilisation comprising that collection of nations was inevitably heading towards its collapse.)
In the immediate post-1975 years, the conventional wisdom was that, for America, there was nothing ahead but a long but inevitable, slow slide into global second or even third place. And especially given the disastrous effects on the country from its excruciating experience in Vietnam, that decline was something approaching faster still. Evolving from that view, the future most probably belonged to the Soviet Union, along with its (sometimes reluctant) allies, which was poised to be the wave of the future, per that implacable Marxist logic. And the momentum was growing.
But that was then. Just a decade and a half after such a view, by 1990, the Soviet Union was no more. It had disintegrated due to its inability to address successfully the defence budget challenge posed by the US, multiplied by the Soviet Union's creakily inefficient — even sclerotic — economic system. And, surprisingly to many, it was unable to address internal pressures from ethnicities inside the borders of the old USSR, plus the resurgent nationalisms and desires for greater individual liberties in the countries dominated by the USSR in Eastern Europe since the end of World War 2.
China and the USSR/Russia
One important footnote was that the idea of an existential challenge posed by China to the US was barely envisioned back then. Throughout the 1970s and 80s — and even on into the 1990s — China was not seen as a truly serious challenger for the top spot, given that it was still rebuilding from the excesses and depredations of its Cultural Revolution.
It was only when China entered into the regulatory framework of the WTO — the World Trade Organisation — and had enacted a wide range of economic reforms that its export-oriented industries really took off, turning the country into the global manufacturing powerhouse it has since become.
Think back to the early-to-mid-1970s. Seeking a counterbalance to the manifold military and political challenges coming from the then Soviet Union, even as the US was still in the last tormented years of the tragic entanglement of its Vietnam misadventure, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger drew on the lessons of 19th-century realpolitik thinking and the 'Concert of Europe.' The key was to carry out a triangulation of relationships, balancing America between the then Soviet Union and China and using a new Chinese relationship to balance the energies of the Soviet Union.
Particularly for China, it dangled the possibilities of greater access to the American economy and the larger international order against its continuing economic isolation. For the Soviet Union, it offered both the possibilities of finding a way out of its costly military (and nuclear) standoff and dangled possibilities for greater international investment in the USSR. For decades, this triangular balance held, until the three parties' divergent intentions for the global future became manifest.
By the time of the Trump administration 2.0, the fracturing of this triangular balance has now become the reality with the increasing coming together of Russia and China. Perhaps that was to be expected for many reasons, not least because of the way the two economies dovetail tightly. But it has also been significantly abetted by the mercurial nature of Donald Trump's approach to foreign and economic relations, including his constantly changing positions on tariffs.
Vladimir Putin's Russia has been determined to reassert its control over czarist Russia's possessions — and especially Ukraine — as well as its broader sphere of influence. This parallels a belief in the importance of an older Russian value system that eschews the perceived moral slackness of Western nations that could infect Russia as well, if unchecked.
Such attitudes and ideas are driving forces in Russia's onslaught on Ukraine (and parts of Georgia), along with its not particularly subtle threats towards the Baltic nations (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), once part of the Russian empire — and even underpins suspicious-sounding hints directed at other eastern members of Nato.
Meanwhile, Xi Jinping's China is determined to create its own primacy in the international economy, something being built largely upon its massive capabilities as a manufacturer/exporter, as well as its increasingly imposing position in developing and putting to use new and emergent technologies.
This stands in stark contrast to the US which, under Trump, is busy ramping down R&D support by the government in those very same technologies of the future. Running in the background, of course, for China's leaders (and many of its people) is a realisation that half a millennium ago, its economy was the largest and most productive on the planet. That history also contributes to the country's leadership cadre's real desire to regain the high ground heading into the rest of the 21st century.
The US
As for the Americans, after decades of being positioned as the global primus inter pares nation, and having imbibed the idea that it was the essential nation, under its incumbent president, the decision has been made to pull back from international engagement and long-established relationships.
Instead, rather than seeking to engage energetically with either Russia or China to reach a newer version of a modus vivendi that might echo what Kissinger had achieved in his time, after first cozying up to Russia largely on Putin's terms, the Trump administration now seems intent on finding disagreements with both China and Russia — and with Western Europe's EU as well. In the latter case, this is despite the largely overlapping membership of those nations in the Nato alliance with America.
Resolute positions that are made in conjunction with heretofore longstanding allies is not a strong suit for the Trump administration as it meanders directionless through the landscape of global issues — in addressing Russian actions in Ukraine, the continuing conflicts of the Middle East, or the collapsing structure of the global trading regimen.
Under Donald Trump's deeply uneven, mercurial leadership, the US has managed to position itself against its three other major global economic or security competitors, as well as with the BRICS formation, for whatever that grouping really matters, thrown in for good measure.
Effectively, the Trump administration is busy running the table in a hunt for potential or real antagonists. Even further, it has now tossed overboard efforts to find areas where cooperation could be found with this collection of forces. This could have included the threats of environmental degradation and climate change; instead, it has labelled all of that as a hoax designed to suck out the wealth of the US for the benefit of undeserving others.
Historical examples
But history says multi-directional competitions waged against a full sweep of potential partners turned enemies cannot be a successful plan for the longer strategic interest of the US, even as it offers some possibilities for individual tactical (and temporary) gains.
Consider the following examples drawn from history, showing the failure of such omnidirectional antagonisms, even from an ostensible position of great strength. For example, by the early part of the 19th century, Napoleon had established a European system that drew in virtually all the nations of Europe, save for the United Kingdom.
But that hierarchical system with France at the peak broke apart in the wake of Napoleon's failed Russian campaign. As a result, by 1814, his military was confronting an alliance that overwhelmed any chances for a continuation of a European system captained by an imperial France. The alternative, hammered out in the Treaty of Vienna after Napoleon's downfall — the 'Concert of Europe' — largely managed continental issues until the tensions between two groups of nations overwhelmed the continent with the outbreak of World War 1.
Similarly, in 1940, Germany was ascendant over most of Europe, save for Britain. For many observers, including the American Ambassador to the UK, Joseph P Kennedy, it seemed the Germans would, even if they did not actually invade the British Isles, eventually be able to wear down the British into a kind of sullen submission. But the delusion and enticement of still greater victories led to the disastrous invasion of the Soviet Union. And if that was not sufficient, just days after Japan's own effort to gain control over the Pacific Ocean through its attack at Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on America as well. Facing three determined, powerful enemies simultaneously led to Germany's total and complete destruction by those three allied nations, despite their very different goals for what would come after the defeat of the Third Reich.
Or look further afield for an example of how overweening hubris can deliver national disaster. Consider the fate of Paraguay in its war with three neighbours during the years 1865-70. Its ruler, Francisco Lopez, had built a formidable military (at least in Latin American terms) and Lopez decided for some reason that it would intercede on Uruguay's side in Uruguay's dispute with Brazil.
Things soon turned into a war that pitted Paraguay against an alliance comprising the combined might of Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina. The inevitable result was its utter defeat. By the end of hostilities, the population of Paraguay fell to around 250,000 people, with only 25,000 men remaining in the country, and with big chunks of territory ceded to its neighbours. Things were so dire, Paraguay received a unique papal dispensation to allow polygamy to restock the country's population.
While virtually nobody believes the fatal outcomes for Napoleonic France, Hitler's Germany or Lopez's Paraguay awaits America despite ill-fated decisions by its president effectively to confront all of its international competitors or frenemies pretty much simultaneously, the facts remain what they are — the road ahead will be increasingly fraught for an America without friends or even negotiating partners in a complicated world. Such a stance is in opposition to its own larger, longer-term interests. DM