According to this article MSN the political and social climate has dragged us in the mud and weve lost any international influence and good will because of it …
So my question is how right or wrong is the article?
Haven’t time to read the article, but I agree with the thesis.
The United States has been a major world leader because of its ideals, not just its armed forces. The more it abandons its ideals and simply relies on force for leadership, the less leadership it will have, internationally.
Reminds me of the comment two millenia ago from the British chieftain about the Romans: “They make a desert and call it peace.”
Leadership by a mixture of ideals and persuasion, emphasising common goals and mutual benefits with other countries, with force in support, has done the US wonders in their past 70 years. If you decide to just rely on force, whether military or economic, which seems to be the goal of the current US regime, it won’t end well for any of us, in my opinion.
Just to illustrate this point: during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US Ambassador had a meeting with President De Gaulle, seeking France’s support.
The Ambassador pulled out a file of air surveillance photos of the missiles and site construction in Cuba and offered them to De Gaulle.
De Gaulle waved them away and said he didn’t need to look at them. “A great nation such as yours does not lie to its allies.”
Can you imagine any nation taking that approach to the US now, after Colin Powell lying to the UN, and the US running a concentration camp for alleged terrorists in Gitmo, and the US sending a Canadian citizen to Syria to be tortured, and the US Congress confirming the torturer-in-chief as the head of the CIA and the US taking children away from parents seeking asylum and caging them? (To pick just some examples.)
Too soon to say. Definitely, we’re seeing a rise in other powers and a distribution of power from the US. We’re stepping back from a lot of our leadership roles. I think that our economic hegemony is already no longer as awe-inspiring as it once was. That said, no one really seems to want to change the status quo dramatically. China wants to project more power, but it doesn’t seem to desire to be ‘THE’ world leader and is mostly happy just getting richer (which is typical of Chinese empires throughout history, so no reason to think this one is any different. When you’re already wrangling nearly a billion and a half people, that’s typically enough of a problem without worrying about wrangling anymore.) Russia is probably the country that most wants to exert its influence on the world stage, but those days are behind it and with fossil fuels slowly but steadily going away, there’s no reason to think that those days will return any time soon. The EU is probably the most likely successor to the US, but they’re in their own mess right now. Britain leaving has their power waning and they really still don’t have a solution to the PIIGS. The most likely outcome is something like a pre-World War I world where lots of countries have moderate amounts of power. Of course, that’s a dangerous place to be, but I’ll be an optimist and hope that after Trumpism has died down the world will find a way to work through it. In some ways, Trumpism might be good for the world. It might encourage institutions that are able to resolve their differences without an 800-lb gorilla always being on the sideline.
The question will be how much we can get back once Trump leaves office. I think most world leaders realize that the sudden diplomatic and economic changes the US has taken in the direction of a rogue state are all due to Trump. So supposing a run of the mill Democrat takes over in 2020, will it be seen as a 4 year anomaly, “Thank god that’s over, lets go back to the way things were”. Or will the fact that it happened once mean it could easily happen again, and so they will know, going forward, never to trust America’s word beyond the term of the current administration.
The article seems mostly to be about trade rather than war.
I am not sure how strongly trade relations or international relations between other countries correlates very strongly with approval ratings of the US President overseas. I am sure Europeans approved more of Obama than they do Trump - how did that affect Brexit or the Greek defaults or Putin and the Crimea?
America’s influence on the world comes mostly from trade, and I would agree that Trump is doing this badly, from our military, and I see no indication that Trump is reducing our military power, and our culture, and that hasn’t changed at all.
:shrugs: It’s Krugman. Same song, second verse.
Regards,
Shodan
I think it’ll depend on how US institutions adapt to a post-Trump world. If he loses in 2020 but successfully moulds the Republican Party in his image and it sustains not insignificant polling numbers, then Trumpism becomes part of the fabric of US politics and will have to be taken into consideration by foreign powers.
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I think the article is overstating the case that the US has lost all it’s influence and status and that ‘pax americana’ is now over. Have we lost some influence and face in this latest cluster fuck, as well as the overall cluster fuck that is and has been the Trump presidency? Certainly. But no way have we lost it all at this point or even the majority.
That wasn’t an issue of trust. People were simply more naive back then.
“Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail.” – Henry Stimson
I remember when W Bush’s second term was ending and someone here asked what the next president’s challenges would be and I said it would be managing America’s diminished status. We have clearly been in decline for quite a while.
Here it is, told ya.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=456732&highlight=Diminished
Also, other countries have been on the rise and there has been a general turning away from relying on the protection of a superpower country. For example, many African countries are now doing a lot more in the way of varying degrees of alliance with each other in addition to the individual countries being a lot better off.
The whole idea of one country creating peace for other countries relies on a massive difference in power. Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, Pax Americana…they all relied on that. Even if the superpower retains the same amount of power, the difference in power won’t remain. In some ways, the decline of it is a sign of the success of it - a superpower successfully imposing peace without harsh oppression will result in the countries under its peace gaining in prosperity and co-operation and thus being in less need of its peace.
Trump’s relatively protectionist policies aren’t helping, but they’re not the cause. Trump didn’t cause the rise in power of China, India and Russia. Trump didn’t cause the various economic and political blocs around the world. Trump didn’t cause the increase in prosperity of many previously extremely poor countries.
The difference is that our allies across both oceans knew that they could depend on America to be there if Russia or China threatened. Now America has a President who seems to be more on the side of Russia and China (and even North Korea!) than of our traditional allies.
As madmonk says, this isn’t the first aberration; that was Dubya. And Trump’s far worse. Our traditional allies will be relieved when a Dem takes over, but they’re a lot less likely this time to trust that we’ll continue to be trustworthy.
It has always been the case that any country can be depended to do what’s best for itself. Including the USA. Allies are more likely to care about how how predictable a leader is, how competent a leader is and to what extent they can do business with them, not what political party that leader is from. Trump fails on all three, but that’s not because he isn’t a member of the democrats. It’s because he’s who he is.
Russia and China have more power than most countries, so it makes sense for the president of the USA to be more on their side or at least to make them think so to a useful extent. Politics isn’t a nice business.
Obama had a far better reputation here in the UK not because of the party he was a member of but because he seemed like a decent person who was good at the job and who would be willing and able to sit down and talk reasonably with representatives from other countries to do business (political and financial) in a civilised way. Trump doesn’t seem like any of those things. The common response to Trump over here isn’t fear. It’s laughter. Especially with Twitter. A national leader whose tweets are less measured and coherent than those of an adolescent drama queen. It’s bizarre enough to be funny. Although probably less so to people from the USA. It’s probably not the image you’d like. Probably less so to national leaders as well. It must be frustrating for them to deal with him. But he’s a temporary issue and most politics is done through civil services anyway. You could elect a dog as President and things would continue to function. Probably a bit better. We have a more fundamental problem here in the UK because we have far less restriction on the power of the Prime Minister, who is worryingly close to being an elected dictator and needs reining in with some reforms. I’m a lot more concerned about that than I am about a blithering idiot in the White House making a fool of himself. You have more effective checks and balances in place, despite the ludicrous level of partisan politics (even worse than ours, which is saying something).
Ehhhhhhhhhh…
I’d be careful about that. Even if this is true, other countries’ perceptions of our culture absolutely has changed.
I was talking more about superficial things like pop culture, and I doubt foreign perception of Hollywood or TV or Internet memes has changed much.
Regards,
Shodan
[ol]
[li]We don’t elect the Prime Minister, they’re chosen from the elected MPs (occasionally Lords)[/li][li]The PM’s agenda is generally that of the majority party, if it isn’t, they’ll get a leadership challenge.[/li][li]Have you noticed a lot of Brexit related issues sailing through parliament recently? The PM’s power is severely limited if they aren’t fully backed by a majority of MPs.[/li][li]Do they not teach this stuff in school anymore?[/li][/ol]
Trade and Diplomacy are probably the biggest issue in any Trump-related decline in American power, soft power is best and Trump doesn’t seem to know how to wield it.
I don’t think any distrust is going away when Trump does. If you’re thinking of making any long term dealings with the US, you have to take into account that every 4 years they might elect another Trump who’ll cancel deals, raise tariffs, maybe use your products to molest a baby, not a good environment for stability.
I half suspect that a lot of it is intentional on his part, if he pisses off enough allies then he can pull off the ‘Everyone’s against us’ slogan, if he causes a depression through a pointless trade war, people are more likely to agree to give the government more power to help stop them from starving to death, if he gets away with drugging toddlers in special child prisons and there’s not a single assassination attempt, no mass strikes or walk-outs, and no-one throws a single firebomb, he knows he can push it further.
Maybe the American Republic is going down but the Empire might stick around for a long time.
And Reagan, etc., who like Trump was going to blow up the world. There isn’t anything new about the current situation. European leaders always push back against a Republican president for their own domestic reasons, and Democrats publicize their criticisms for domestic political leverage.
Other countries will continue to cooperate with or oppose the US to the extent that it suits their interest to do so, as has always been the way. Certainly, citing the US relationship with De Gaulle as an example of a high point of US leadership and international cooperation seems odd.
Heh, I didn’t want to say it since it was tangential to the point, but I’m there with you. Our relationship with De Gaulle was terrible. He actually withdrew from NATO because he thought we were too powerful and was jealous of our relationship with Britain. We forced them to develop their own nukes and overall the relationship was absolutely terrible.
The article conflates trade and US influence. The US is losing influence around the world and will continue to do so. It has nothing to do with who the president is or how much foreigners like him. Foreigners loved Obama yet the diminishment of US influence continued apace during his term. What is causing the US to lose influence is the realization that the US no longer wants to be the world’s policeman. Iraq and Afghanistan have showed that the US no longer has the stomach for a fight. Demographics mean that the US is going to follow the example of Europe and start spending so much money on old people’s care that it does not have the money for a huge military. Syria is the first post pax Americana conflict. The US acted like just another nation. Some limited help to rebels and some assistance with bombing but mostly just ineffectual tut tutting while hundreds of thousands of people are killed.
The replacement will be regional hegemonies. Germany will be the hegemon of Western Europe, Russia of Eastern Europe, China of North Asia, India of South Asia. Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting proxy wars in Yemen and Syria to determine who will be hegemon in the Middle East with Turkey trying to get involved too.
The rise of economic populism and trade fights is a totally separate phenomenon. The sharp increase of immigration in the US and Europe have led to a rise in populist parties. Populism is always against free trade. Hillary though TPP was the gold standard of trade agreements and as soon as she saw the polling disavowed it. Of course as soon as she did that Krugman jumped on board and more or less disavowed free trade. Now that Trump is doing the one grandstanding of trade he has gone back to being for free trade.