This week’s free newsletter from Foreign Exchanges (read the full version here)
It’s full of information about events around the world. If you read this regularly, you will be smarter. For this post today, I’m going to talk about one element of this world roundup: the Ukraine War and the role of the United States in the international world order since the end of World War II.
In a recent publication by the Alameda Institute (in the Bay Area of California) Daniel Bessner (an Associate Professor in International Studies at the University of Washington) links the US interest in Ukraine to Washington’s fears about its precious “rules.” This is how this newsletter summarizes Bessner’s argument:
Donald Trump’s ascension to the presidency in 2017 contributed to a significant uptick in chatter in Washington, DC about the decline of the ‘rules-based international order’. The just-so story told by those who valorize such an order goes as follows:
After World War II, the United States, in concert with Western European allies, constructed an international system in which liberal norms of engagement and exchange, and institutions like international law and the United Nations, helped end major wars and ensure (relative) geopolitical stability.
Though those who promote this tale often admit that mistakes were made in the Cold War and post-Cold War periods—the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraq Wars are usually highlighted as especially egregious errors—they nevertheless claim that, on balance, the rules-based international order proved a force for good in the world.
Trump’s victory took the wind out of the sails of this triumphalist narrative. The reality star’s willingness to openly criticize his forebears’ launching of endless wars; his vulgarity and xenophobia; and his discursive insouciance toward traditional US ideas about global power and responsibility, generated an almost hysterical panic among defenders of the liberal order.
Trump, it seemed to many, was a harbinger of US hegemony’s end, or at least its attenuation. These anxieties were also held by US allies, especially in Western Europe, who likewise fretted about the end of the era of US ‘leadership.’
When President Joseph R. Biden assumed office in 2021, his primary foreign policy goal was to reinvigorate the rules-based order by persuading allies that the United States was committed to reinvigorating its ‘leadership.’ The war in Ukraine provided Biden, Blinken, and other key members of the administration with a seemingly ideal opportunity to show the world that the United States wasn’t going anywhere. Unsurprisingly, the administration seized this opportunity with aplomb.
Bessner’s argument is much more detailed than this summary; you can read the full text here: https://alameda.institute/2023/04/28/viii-the-return-of-the-united-states-ukraine-and-the-rules-based-international-order/
I think this is a simple and straightforward presentation of the impact that the former administration had on international perceptions of the United States. Even in the egregiously cringe-worthy “town hall” (aka TFG Rally) that disgraced CNN last night, TFG made a point of criticizing the Biden administration’s foreign policy (specifically, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Ukraine War – which he claimed he could end in 24 hours). TFG continues his threats to derail the international world order.
To be clear, he neither understands nor cares about the rest of the world, except for the degree to which he can profit from the authoritarian oligarchs whose value system aligns with his. His perception of foreign policy is embodied in two words – America First – which signals everything and means nothing. It is neither a governing philosophy nor a set of policies. It is an advertising slogan (he’s supposedly a “great businessman,” right?) that he’s hoping will raise a lot of money for him to hide and then use as he wishes.
The followers that he’s duped are much like the victims in an abusive relationship. They deny that he has hurt them even while he’s continuing to hurt them and they believe that he loves them when he has shown nothing but disdain for them. They are the abused spouse who refuses to leave the relationship because “he doesn’t mean to hurt me – he just gets carried away. He really loves me.” And just like in an abusive relationship, the most dangerous time for the victims is when they decide to leave. This makes the abuser even more angry and more abusive. This is the point at which the victims of abuse become victims of homicide. This will be the result if we treat TFG like a normal presidential candidate (I’m looking at you, CNN) in the run-up to 2024, and then he loses (again). Which he will. He’ll tear it all down before he admits that he lost. Tell me I’m wrong.
Today’s GOP is in the thrall of TFG, which means that they do not plan to stand in the way of his path to reelection. They don’t want him to turn his MAGA voting base against them by labeling them as “woke,” so they continue to support uncontrolled access to weapons, severe restrictions on abortion, book banning, persecution of the LBGTQA++ community, Christian nationalism, and other such anti-American philosophies. The result is predictable; seven countries (New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Venezuela, and Uruguay) have issued mild advisories to their citizens planning to travel to the US. In general, they cite gun violence and hate crimes as the basis for their warnings.
Land of the free and the home of the brave. Right.
As President Biden tweeted after last night’s debacle,
It’s simple, folks.
Do you want four more years of that?
If you don’t, pitch in to our campaign.
Yes. Will jump in the shower next and then, gone!
Right on.