I have been thinking about the potential cumulative effects of Trump’s various diplomatic and defense policy choices of late. I do not like what the list of ingredients could sum to. I am not trying to be alarmist, but let’s consider the following elements in a bit of a thumbnail sketch.
- A sustained campaign of alienating friends.
- NATO. The US government has systematically eroded its relationship with NATO, the most important defense alliance arguably of all time.
- South Korea. Out of the blue, recently Trump criticized US participation in a long-standing set of war games with South Korea and praised North Korea in the process. We also redeployed assets from South Korea to the Iran theater.
- Canada. Canada and the United States share the most peaceful and unproblematic massive border in the world. We share a great deal culturally, and we are tremendously successful business partners. And yet, Trump has convinced a subset of the US population that Canada is the enemy and has started a pointless trade war with them.
- Promoting strong men. Trump appears to hate our friends, but he sure loves people like Xi, Putin, Km Jung Un, and Erdogan.
- Unnecessarily disrupting the global economy.
- The whole tariff regime he keeps trying to install has created substantial uncertainty in global markets and has threatened to upend the very foundation of the neoliberal trading order that has been a lynchpin of the post-WWII peace, and of US global dominance since the end of the Cold War.
- The massive miscalculation over the Strait of Hormuz and its effects on things like diesel and fertilizers, among other commodities.
- Threats to issue a new sanctions regime against Iran, which will require economic warfare against other countries, which just widens an already problematic conflict.
- A return to old-school militarism, imperialism, and mercantilism. This is related to the previous three bullet points, but this administration’s rhetorical and material shift away from a pro-liberal democracy to great powers/spheres of influence approach to global politics empowers Russia and China.
- Trump’s rhetorical thirst for territorial expansion, with Greenland being the most obvious, since the Danes definitely take it seriously. Add in the “51st state” rhetoric about Canada and the notion of renaming the Strait of Hormuz.
- The removal of Maduro in Venezuela and the oil deal that was just announced.
- The petty renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario.
- The general idea that we should be maintaining our sphere of influence over the Americas, which implies that Russia and China have the right to dominate their own spheres.
- The idea (which also is part of the previous point) that trade and economic interchange is some kind of zero-sum game and a tool of national power rather than a means of interchange, integration, and friendship that can have positive-sum outcomes.
- Demonstrating military weakness.
- In Iran, despite all that has been blown up, we are demonstrating that we cannot force a weaker power to submit to our strategic goals. China is paying attention to this.
- In Iran, we are expending a substantial amount of ordnance that cannot be quickly replaced. This will have follow-on effects in Ukraine and very specifically tells adversaries that we lack certain capabilities.
- The gutting of military leadership by Hegseth as part of his obviously ideologically driven anti-DEI, pro-loyalty approach is not only an obvious detriment to military readiness; it is something else our adversaries are surely noticing.
- Ignoring current trends in warfare. Both Ukraine and Iran have demonstrated the importance of drone warfare, and yet the US government is currently obsessed with large and expensive weapons that take a long time to produce.
Beyond this list, I would add three other vague themes.
First is just a simplistic approach to power. Trump’s worldview eschews the notion that power might emerge out of cooperation and friendship. No, he has a childish view of power that manifests in blowing things up and being a bully.
Second, it is a backward-looking worldview. His obsession with oil, for example, while ignoring the growing Chinese dominance in electric vehicles, or not understanding that if we had more renewable sources of energy (like the windmills he irrationally hates), places like the Strait of Hormuz would matter less.
Third, whether it be internal policies on immigration, or broader views of the way the international system works, this administration is actively feeding a growing international resurgence of nationalism. This is not in our interests, nor in the globe’s.
If one were writing a novel about how we got into WWIII, the above list would be, unfortunately, a great starting spot. It paints a picture of the removal of the US-led alliance as the main force in the global order, as reinforced by highly integrated economies. It further underscores the weakness of the US even as a military power and illustrates openings for China and Russia to expand their influence. Certainly, this list (and no doubt any number of other things I am leaving out) will be part of some future historian’s work about how we shifted from an era of relative peace and stability to one of greater global conflict.
It seems undeniable that Trump has essentially ended the post-WWII world order as it evolved into the post-Cold War peace. Understand that, of course, that order was imperfect, as is any set of human institutions. Still, the movement away from strict nationalism and zero-sum state interactions (whether in terms of territorial control or basic economic interactions) was an unvarnished good.
Like so many adults who did not live through the era of childhood diseases, and so convince themselves that vaccines are unnecessary, so too it appears that too many politicians in the current era simply have forgotten, or never learned, what the world was like when we fought constantly over borders and territory. Nor do they want to listen to the experts about the downside of mercantilism and treating everyone like a competitor instead of looking to make friends.
I will confess to some (small) level of irrational optimism (or probably just denial) that we aren’t headed to a much more conflictual world order and hope that some of this can be reversed. But a more coldly rational assessment tells me that the world that allowed the US to lead because we could be trusted to do so (warts and all) is over. Electing Trump once could have been an aberration of the Electoral College; a mistake. Doing it twice while the Republican Party takes itself down the white nationalist pathway means we can’t be trusted the way that had been the case, and there is no replacement sitting in the wings.
As such, we seem headed towards a world of greater uncertainty where powers like Russia will continue to push, former friends like Canada will have to hedge when they deal with us, and states in general will have to think about international trade and alliances in terms of zero-sum calculations. This is a world that will have more conflict, and that isn’t good for anybody.
(If there is anything that needs to be added to my list, feel free to share in the comments.)
