EMBRACING WANING U.S. GLOBAL LEADERSHIP
Former Harvard president and ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers joins the Greek chorus bewailing President Trump’s failure “to convincingly reaffirm traditional U.S. security commitments to NATO,” citing this refusal as a renunciation of “any claim to U.S. moral leadership.” Mr. Summers worries about two responses to Mr. Trump’s actions: 1) “How China as a rising power may fill the vacuum left by the United States.” 2) “How can U.S. adversaries and allies alike not follow German Chancellor Angela Merkel in concluding the that Unites States is now far less predictable and reliable?” He asks: “How can the responses be other than destabilizing?"
There are several troubling assertions here. For example, why does Mr. Summers decry rather than celebrate the renunciation of “any claim to U.S. moral leadership” by the U.S. President, a notoriously immoral man? (Need I count the ways?) Does the world really want a visibly flawed man leading it? The U.S. renounced any claim to moral leadership when it elected Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump aside, I should think Mrs. Merkel and others might welcome China’s ascendancy as a desirable alternative to waning U.S. global leadership. Somebody’s got to do it, why not China? The Chinese economy thrives year after year at rates 3 to 4 times that of the U.S. Check. The Chinese possess vast international foreign exchange reserves accumulated through decades of trade surpluses. Check. Chinese businesses and government are making strategic economic alliances for mutual benefit and dependency with many important countries, and are, thereby, welcomed with open arms by all. Check. The Chinese do not burden other countries with their ideology, nor do they threaten anyone with a large offensive military, and so pose no threat to anyone beyond their borders. Check. The communist Chinese government runs an orderly society encompassing a fifth of the earth’s population. Check. The Chinese are presently transitioning from an agricultural society to a modern industrial one without civil war, which is more than the U.S. can say. . . Check.
Say what you will about communism; when maintaining order in a transforming population of 1.4 billion people across 5 time zones, a strong monolithic government may be the best one can do. Do you suppose China could do better in the rough-and-tumble of democracy, which in the U.S. has produced George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump?
By contrast, what "moral" global leadership has the U.S. exerted in the ironically named “Postwar” period? Perpetual war, mostly. Since Eisenhower's creation after World War II, of “a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions,” to maintain it the United States has engaged in more-or-less a permanent state of war: Korea (China’s Mao period, last time China fought America) for three years; Vietnam for a decade; the Balkans, mercifully short; the First Gulf War, also mercifully short; Afghanistan now in its 16th year; Iraq, now in its 14thyear, plus an assortment of other minor skirmishes. With what results? Millions of brown- skin people killed and maimed by American troops in wars of choice, all in the name of ideology, spreading the gospel of democracy and capitalism. In addition, the U.S. supplies weapons from its “immense military establishment and a large arms industry” for wars all over the world. In short, the U.S. has fulfilled Eisenhower’s warning about the dangers of “undue influence of the military-industrial complex in the councils of government.” Peace is not forthcoming from American global leadership.
Should we share Mr. Summers trepidation about Mr. Trump’s refusal to reaffirm traditional U.S. security commitments to NATO? As long as the U.S. maintained its unconditional commitment to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, Europe felt free to underfund its commitment to the common defense. Now Angela Merkel says Europe “must take its fate into its own hands.” It’s about time. U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East have long played on American vanity as “leader of the free world,” to induce tthe U.S. to shoulder the burden of their defense while they step aside in supporting roles, be it in defending Europe or combatting Muslim extremists in the Middle East. The war in Europe has been over for 72 years. Isn't it about time Europeans donned long pants?
A stronger Europe diminishes relative U.S. power. Good.
Mr. Summers worries about diminishing U.S. leadership as “destabilizing.” That’s rich. American intervention in the Middle East since 2001 has completely destabilized the region, with coups, revolutions, uprisings, civil wars prompting masses of refugees to flood Europe, shaking up Euro-politics. The Western world is beset with terrorist attacks. Financially, the U.S. singlehandedly damn near collapsed the world economy with its reckless financial policies in 2008 – a trauma still shaking Europe. American-led sanctions punish those countries America regards as adversaries, destabilizing their economies like Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Russia. Need I go on?
The U.S. has been, and remains the most destabilizing force on the planet, and is now ruled by an unpredictable, vindictive, immoral man assailed by the dogged forces of law enforcement at home and generally held in contempt abroad.
What other conclusion can there be but gratitude for the waning global leadership of the United States?