Posted on 10/23/2020 9:05:41 PM PDT by caww
Since the end of the Cold War, most U.S. policymakers have been beguiled by a set of illusions about the world order. On critical issues, they have seen the world as they wish it were and not how it really is. ....President Donald Trump, who is not a product of the American foreign policy community, does not labor under these illusions. Trump has been a disrupter, and his policies, informed by his heterodox perspective, have set in motion a series of long-overdue corrections.... Many of these necessary adjustments have been misrepresented or misunderstood in today’s vitriolic, partisan debates. But the changes Trump has initiated will help ensure that the international order remains favorable to U.S. interests and values and to those of other free and open societies.
Given these new realities, Washington cannot simply return to the comfortable assumptions of the past. The world has moved beyond the “unipolar moment” of the post–Cold War period and into an age of interdependence and competition that calls for different policies and tools. .....To properly navigate this new era, Washington must let go of old illusions, move past the myths of liberal internationalism, and reconsider its views about the nature of the world order.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignaffairs.com ...
Thank you very much Theoria.
Thank you very much Theoria.
I walk by idiots wearing masks outdoors with no one around and I say “quisling
“. Not one person has challenged me knowing what it means.
Did you expect they’d understand what you meant? LOL
Yes yes
It was excellent!
The focus might be on creating mission-driven coalitions that could construct redundant supply chains, fund research in emerging technologies, promote fair and reciprocal trade, and cooperate on security issues. Such coalitions would be open to new members’provided’... they shared U.S. interests and values and could bring capabilities to bear on key problems.
Provided should be emphasized!
trump has not only permanently redefined U.S. foreign policy and the future approaches thereto, but has basically redefined how future presidential campaigns will be conducted, and the U.S. Presidency itself ... Presidents will no longer be able to hide for months at a time interspersed with 15 minute press conferences ... and then of course the behind-the-scenes way he actually runs the U.S. government itself ...
Sure, thanks for the article.
I usually just say “sheep.”
The world is following suit and even Biden surrogates say Biden is, but they will not acknowledge Trump’s leadership.
And if Biden wins it will go back to swamp stasis and corruption.
What the author clearly comprehends is a shift in geopolitical thinking we've been discussing on FR for years now: the difficulties posed by a worldview that encompasses one giant globalist pattern on human activity throughout the planet. That was always superficial if not downright naive. The intention to impose it whether by military or economic force was not a recognition of the ineluctable arc of history, but a throwback to the aspirations of empire. It didn't work, it never has.
That view presumed that since other countries were progressing inexorably toward liberal democracy, they would share many of Washington’s goals and would play by Washington’s rules. That belief tended to minimize the importance of national sovereignty and the fact that countries differ in how they organize their own communities. Even among democracies, there exists a high degree of variation when it comes to cultural, institutional, and political values.
And so the apparent intention of an international elite class was the imposition of a single mold into which the world might be forced one country at a time and never mind the fit. That obviously didn't happen; indeed, what did happen was a resurgence of national identity in spite of it. The EU is now struggling with one aspect of this, but the real playing field is the entire planet.
Trump emphasizes the role of states in the international order, challenging an American tendency since the end of the Cold War to transfer power to international organizations.
That wasn't an American tendency at all, it was a globalist goal into which American foreign policy was sucked by American elites who believed and still do that they have transcended nationalism, to the considerable cost of their own nation. The accompanying conviction that their own country was inherently evil fed certain egos convinced that they personally were better than all that and hence had the right to rule. It was observably not their virtue that had swollen with power, it was their vanity. And Trump is very good at puncturing vanity.
Many on the left will be reluctant to accept the idea of a rolling end state because they tend to believe that the arc of history is progressing toward a liberal convergence and view the push and pull of a competitive world as overly aggressive and likely to lead to war.
Central to this is the assumption, held with the force of religious canon, that nationalism has been solely responsible for war; in fact, that is a relatively recent phenomenon that is far from universal. Religion motivates wars? Well, then, let's do away with it. Nationalism? We'll do away with that too. Unmanaged economic competition? Has to go. What we are left with is an international culture devoid of normal human activity in favor of a presumably benevolent nursery structure that in practice, stifles it. Nobody wants to live there. Is anyone surprised?
Washington needs to accept that global problems are not necessarily best solved by global institutions, which are accountable primarily to internal bureaucracies rather than to external constituencies.
Washington and every other bastion of authoritarian control the planet holds, yes. Ah, but it is so very rewarding to follow that model if one happens to be a member of those bureaucracies or the elites who rule through them, motivated by a pretense of virtue that is at its core utterly corrupt. Consider an American ruling class whose signal characteristic is its ability to enrich itself from that pretense. Realize that it isn't limited to America. It will be enough if we can deal with our part of it - one can, after all, only choke the throat that's within reach. It is encumbent that we do so.
A rather surprising article from Foreign Affairs, given their leftward movement over the last 25 years.
The Council on Foreign Relations, which publishes Foreign Affairs is usually more like this (from their website):
“CFR’s membership represents a group unmatched in accomplishment and diversity in the field of international affairs. In this video, members including Robert E. Rubin, Condoleezza Rice, Fareed Zakaria, and Angelina Jolie explain why CFR is a trusted and indispensable resource on the foreign policy choices facing the United States.”
In under 4 years he redefined peace in the ME. Something nobody has been able to do since WW2. He single handedly solved the “Palestinian Question”. His answer was “no”.
Great article. Thanks. Trump is really approaching his foreign policy with an Occam’s Razor approach. The simplest solution is probably the best.
Not without nuances, but under complicating things is almost always best.
Morons like Kissinger, Kerry, and Clinton in charge of foreign policy has been an unmitigated morass of failure.
Reagan was great. Trump is greater.
The world is lazy and they look to the US for leadership
“Morons like Kissinger, Kerry, and Clinton in charge of foreign policy has been an unmitigated morass of failure.”
Deep Staters all, trying to reduce America to just another plate at the global table.
It depends on how you define empire. If you define empire as a uniform legal, economic and cultural system, then yes, the strains and centrifugal forces are immediately apparent whether in ancient Rome, the America since the New Deal or the EU. If you define empire as military hegemony over otherwise mostly autonomous states, such as the United States as envisioned in the Constitution then not as much.
Yup.
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