My own opinion is that, since sometime in the mid-twentieth century, the United States has been the “leader of the free world.” I also believe that all this “America First” jingoism coming out of the Trump administration is eroding our position as free world leader and, if we haven’t already handed it over to another country, are rapidly in the process of doing so.
So, my questions:
Is there (at least at times) a country that is L of the FW? if so, what are the responsibilities of holding that role?
What are the advantages of being L of the FW? What are the disadvantages?
I also believe that most Trump supporters don’t see the possibility of losing our L of the FW status; they seem to believe that the role of the US as L of the FW is ordained somehow and that nothing we do will strip us of that role. If we do lose that role, will they be shocked and/or disappointed?
As a non-American, I’ve never accepted the jingoism of “Leader of the Free World.” The President of the US is not my leader, regardless who the current occupant of the position is.
Certainly this administration has done it’s best to erode the US’s standing in the world. The trade tariff’s alone wrt the EU have hurt us badly, as has Trump’s administration when dealing with NATO and other international groups. Backing out of the TPP and the Paris agreement hurt us as well.
That said, I don’t see any other country stepping up wrt western oriented nations, and the US has a long way to go before it burns up all it’s good will as well as soft and hard power. Perhaps in Trump’s second term…
The US is still clearly the leader of the western world wrt military and economic power. Being LotFW really just entails diplomacy and use of soft power. The US can’t force other countries to do whatever it wants, it has to use carrots and sticks and soft power to try and achieve some goal. Sadly, our current president doesn’t seem to get how it works and also doesn’t seem to care or think highly of this sort of power. To him, everyone else has to bow and do our (his) will, which isn’t how this goes. Just to give a drive by example, sometimes the US might not get the best trade deal it could by playing hardball…but from a geopolitical standpoint we get something else that we need a lot more than a few billion extra. The TPP was basically this sort of deal, though the reality, unlike what Trump thought (if I can use that term loosely) is that the US was getting a pretty good pure trade deal as well.
Well, it depends on what you do with it and how you try and do it really. The advantages are that you can (if you can) pursued other nations to align with your broader interests and work together for common goals, and as the L part of LofFW you can guide how that happens. The disadvantages would be that you have to be engaged, you can’t bury your head in the sand, and that sometimes you don’t get the best deal you could in pure economic terms but instead get less tangible (to the average orange haired idiot) results.
He doesn’t understand the nature of US power, doesn’t really care for the reality of what it is, and wants it to be what and how he wants it to be…which it isn’t. He’s a clueless idiot, a bull in an international china shop and has done more harm to the US image and soft power than the CIA ever did in its entire history.
Of course not. It doesn’t work this way and never has. But wrt the overarching western alliance your country does look to the US for leadership wrt the big picture…and so do the European countries. So does Japan and so does South Korea. So does Australia. That doesn’t mean that the US president’s will reigns supreme or his every whim or desire is granted, or that all our national interests always align or that there aren’t even large disagreements.
None of those countries look to the US for leadership. They all have their own political agendas and directions. Culturally there is a lot of influence from the US, yes and the US has a lot of economic and military power that come into play in the global arena. On the other hand the US drags it’s feet getting in to a lot of international agreements so there is no ‘leadership’ there. Quite the oppositte.
Question for you. What do you think it means that Americans are the only people who call America the leader of the free world?
I’m going to disagree with you there on behalf of Australia - our politicians definitely do look to the US for leadership. It annoys the everliving fuck out of me and I wish they WOULDN’T, but yes.
Australia was quite content in its “teacher’s pet” status when the British Empire was still a going concern, and responded to its decline by simply latching on to a new teacher to be pet of. Now that it looks like current teacher seems to be retiring, we’re looking very nervously at the replacement, thinking that they look like a bit of a hardass and possibly our Most Favoured Pupil status might be in danger here.
Being Leader of the Free World means, on the up side, that you can make lots of important decisions and, on the downside, that you have to make lots of important decisions. I think large slabs of the US may lose their collective shit once they realise that really, this is it, they are not going to be the number one most powerful influential everywhere, for ever - and I think Trump may well be an early symptom of this shit-losing.
I also think that Obama was fully on top of the fact that the US was no longer quite as big a dog as had been the case 20 years ago, and that a lot of his international policy which was complained of as “weak” was just a reflection of this fact - you can’t push as hard when you’re not quite as big. I think Trump does not know this (add it to the large list of things Trump doesn’t know) and is probably going to break something spectacularly, in consequence.
That is not reality. All of those countries look to the US for leadership on a variety of issues and fronts. Even today, when we have an idiot for a President who would normally be ignored by any sane international leader we have the President of France and Chancellor of Germany in DC trying to manage him and figure out what the hell he’s doing and what that will mean for Europe. We’ve had the Japanese Prime Minister here, we’ve had the Canadian Prime Minister. They don’t come here, even when we have an idiot as the President because they are all doing their own thing with their own agenda. NATO doesn’t listen to and be guided by the US because they all are doing their own thing…and the strike on Syria didn’t wait on the whim of an orange haired idiot because the timing was a coincidence. Even China knows this…which is why they are trying desperately to shift the EU to be more sympathetic towards them, and why the EU voted 27 to 28 against doing any such thing.
I get it. For some reason the US is unpopular on this site, especially for American posters, and it’s considered the thing that the US really isn’t a power anymore. But that isn’t reality, nor is it how those other countries I listed actually react to the US. Like I said, other countries don’t always go along with what the US wants to do. We don’t rule them, or dictate what they do or don’t do. But lead them? Yeah, we do that thing, especially when we aren’t being complete idiots. Ironically, if the TPP had gone through the US ability to influence would have been even greater in the Pacific rim area. Trump has done his best to sink this country wrt foreign policy and relations…but the US is still so strong and dominant that even he can’t do it in just a year.