Trump’s Answer to What is America’s Role in a Multi-Polar World

In his book “Diplomacy” Henry Kissinger observed: “Americans have two contradictory attitudes towards foreign policy:  One, America serves its values best by perfecting democracy at home, i.e., beacon for the rest of mankind; Two, America’s values impose on its an obligation to crusade for them around the world.”[1] 

The fact is that since Woodrow Wilson, and especially after the end of World War Two, the United States opted for the second option, crusading around the world to impose American values, espousing internationalist and globalist political structures such as the United Nations and regional alliances to advance its own interests. 

“Empires have no interest in operating without an international system; they aspire to be [original italics] the international system.  Empires have no need for a balance of power.  That is how the United States has conducted its foreign policy in the Americas, and China through most of its history in Asia.”[2]   Or as Nikita Khrushchev is alleged to have said at the United Nations General Assembly (October 12, 1960):   “Mr. President, call the toady of American imperialism to order.”[3]

After the implosion of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, an often-asked question for American foreign policy has been what is America’s role in a multi-polar world?  Or more philosophically what ought America’s role be in the multi-polar world?   

Despite a lot of opaque efforts and political palliatives about new world orders, fight for democracy and human rights, wars on terror with accompanying foreign military interventions, and supposed obligations that America as a superpower owes to the world[4]--this question has remained largely unanswered until now.

            Enter President Donald J. Trump who is not known for mincing-words:  The nation state “remains the best vehicle for elevating the human condition”[5]  and America’s role in the world is to serve as a beacon for others to emulate and that America will engage the world on its terms as America’s interests are America’s guiding force.[6]

Moreover, Trump placed current and potential adversaries on notice that if forced to defend these interest, America will destroy them.[7] 

“The statesman must act on assessments that cannot be proved at the time he is making them; he [or she] will be judged by history on the basis of how wisely he managed the inevitable change and, above all, by how well he preserves the peace.”[8]  

Whether Trump is right or not depends on the results.  In this regard Vince Lombardi is most on point for in the end, “some of us will do our jobs well and some will not; but we will all be judged on one thing: the results.” 

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[1] Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 18

[2] Kissinger, Diplomacy, p. 21

[3] From Wikiquote but without citation

[4] E.g., Robert Kagan, Superpowers Don’t Get to Retire: What our tired country still owes the world, in New Republic (May 26, 2014) https://newrepublic.com/article/117859/superpowers-dont-get-retire; accessed September 24, 2017.

[5] Gerald F. Seib, “Trump Signals U.S.’s Return to Realpolitik”, Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2017, p. A10.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 27-28

Russian-American Relations 2014: Mistakes Repeated

George Kennan in discussing American foreign policy and democracy notes that we made two big boo-boos during the cold war.  (1) to attribute to the “Soviet leadership aims and intentions it did not really have; in jumping to conclusion that the Soviet leaders were just like Hitler and his associates…” with the same aspirations, timetable, and who could only be dealt with in the same manner as Hitler was. [1]  (2)  The second postwar mistake was to embrace the nuclear weapon “the mainstay of our military posture, and the faith we placed in it to assure our military and political ascendancy in this postwar era.”[2] 

"It is from these two great mistakes that there has flowed, as I see it, the extreme militarization not only of our thought but of our lives that has become the mark of this postwar age. And this is a militarization that has had profound effects not just on our foreign policies but also on our own society… And this habit—the habit of pouring so great a part of our gross national product year after year into sterile and socially negative forms of production—has now risen to the status of what I have ventured to call a genuine national addiction. We could not now break ourselves of the habit without the serious of withdrawal symptoms. Millions of people, is addition to those other millions who are in uniform, have become accustomed to deriving their livelihood from the military-industrial complex. Thousands of firms have become dependent on it, not to mention labor unions and communities. It is the main source of our highly destabilizing budgetary deficit. An elaborate and most unhealthy bond has been created between those who manufacture and sell the armaments and those in Washington who buy them. We have created immense vested interests in the maintenance of a huge armed establishment in time of peace and in the export of great quantities of arms to other peoples—great vested interests, in other words, in the Cold War. We have made ourselves dependent on this invidious national practice; so much so that it may fairly be said that if we did not have the Russians and their alleged iniquities to serve as a rationalization for it, we would have to invent some adversary to take their place—which would be hard to do.[3][My highlight]"

In 2014 it appears that the United States repeated these mistakes (1) to attribute to the Russian leadership aims and intentions that it does not really have; in jumping to conclusion that Putin is just like Stalin and communists. (2) The second mistake it to embrace military instrument of national power as the mainstay of our politico-diplomatic posture despite its limitations in a geopolitical heartland largely outside our strategic reach and capabilities to affect political outcomes.

Question for policy makers: “Is it possible that we may be expecting of Russia [or an other country] higher standards of international conduct than our own?” (Vera Micheles Dean, “Is Russia Alone to Blame?” Foreign Policy Reports, Vol. XXV, March 8, 1946).[4]

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[1] George F. Kennan,  At a Century’s Ending.  Reflections 1982-1995 (New York:  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996), p. 130.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Idid., pp. 130-131

[4] Direct cite from Kenneth W. Thompson, Interpreters and Critics of the Cold War.  Wash. DC: University Press of America (1978), p. iv