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President Donald Trump\u2019s emergent foreign policy agenda is a repudiation of the largely bipartisan consensus that has dominated US grand strategy since the end of World War Two: that the US should seek and maintain primacy in international affairs. Even more worrying, Trump\u2019s approach also has the potential to accelerate the end of the \u2018American era\u2019 in international affairs.<\/p>\n
Primacy, as political scientist Robert Jervis has noted<\/a>, means more than simply having greater economic and military resources than any other state. Primacy also encompasses the ability to establish and influence \u2018the rules of the game\u2019 by which international politics is played, the intellectual framework it employs, and the standards by which behavior is judged to be legitimate.<\/p>\n During the Cold War this required an inherent bargain between realist and liberal approaches to international affairs. The geopolitical containment of the Soviet Union was facilitated by the construction of a system of military and security partnerships, whereby the US guaranteed its allies\u2019 security through US military forces based overseas and an extended nuclear umbrella.<\/p>\n Complementing this was the American underwriting of the post-1945 international order<\/a>, structured around institutionalized political relations amongst states, and an open international economy. In this manner, as Princeton\u2019s G. John Ikenberry has argued<\/a>, \u2018The US made its power safe for the world, and in return the world agreed to live within the US system\u2019, creating \u2018the most stable and prosperous international system in world history\u2019.<\/p>\n But President Trump\u2019s \u2018America First\u2019 foreign policy agenda fundamentally calls this into question. \u2018For many decades\u2019, he asserted in his inaugural address<\/a>, \u2018we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry, subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military\u2026We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon\u2019.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s notion of being \u2018ripped off\u2019 on the international stage is embodied in three major propositions that are at the core of the administration\u2019s emergent foreign policy: the United States\u2019 web of alliances has been over-extended; the United States has been disadvantaged by the open global economy; and the United States is no longer respected by either rivals or friends.<\/p>\n The administration\u2019s responses to each of these issues look set to weaken rather than strengthen American primacy.<\/p>\n First, Trump\u2019s repeated questioning of the utility of US alliances<\/a>, and threats to withdraw American security guarantees<\/a> if its partners fail to bear a greater proportion of the financial burden are counter-productive. Such posturing arguably weakens American credibility with both friends and rivals, encouraging friends to look toward greater self-reliance\u2014including band-wagoning with other great powers\u2014and providing opportunities for rivals to become more strategically assertive.<\/p>\n Second, the administration\u2019s response to the challenges of the open global economic order, including threats to slap high tariffs on imports and pursue a \u2018trade war\u2019 against China, are a throwback to the mercantilist protectionism of the 19th century<\/a>. The viability of such a retreat behind a \u2018tariff wall\u2019 however is not only highly questionable<\/a> given the nature of the contemporary international economic system but also likely to have adverse geo-strategic consequences.<\/p>\n As President Xi Jinping demonstrated at the recent World Economic Forum summit, the opportunities presented by such an abdication of American global economic leadership is one that is unlikely to be passed up in Beijing<\/a>. The Trump administration\u2019s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) provides Beijing with an enormous opportunity to embed itself as the economic linchpin in the Asia-Pacific<\/a> through its ambitious \u2018One Belt, One Road\u2019 (OBOR) strategy. OBOR\u2019s infrastructure-heavy endeavour to enhance Eurasian economic \u2018connectivity\u2019 is also to be supported by Beijing-led multilateral institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) which, as Mark Beeson notes<\/a>, have peaked the interests of \u2018many of the US\u2019s most reliable and trusted allies\u2019.<\/p>\n Third, the President\u2019s claim that putting its \u2018own interests first\u2019 is critical to the United States winning back the respect of other nations is predicated on a zero-sum view of international politics<\/a> where there are only winners and losers.<\/p>\n This transactional approach has been apparent in Trump\u2019s utterances on various issues from how to combat Islamic State (\u2018bomb the shit outta them and take their oil\u2019) to NATO<\/a> (\u2018We are paying disproportionately\u2019) to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement<\/a> (\u2018we’re giving them billions of dollars in this deal\u2019).<\/p>\n President Trump has promised the American people that he will make the United States \u2018wealthy\u2019, \u2018proud\u2019, \u2018safe\u2019 and \u2018great again\u2019.<\/p>\n Yet it\u2019s difficult to see how a foreign policy such as this will help achieve these goals. Rather, the administration appears to be in the process of abdicating America\u2019s leadership role in international affairs. In its absence, that opens up space for others to rewrite the \u2018rules of the game\u2019. They are unlikely to be as favourable to the US or its allies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Donald Trump\u2019s emergent foreign policy agenda is a repudiation of the largely bipartisan consensus that has dominated US grand strategy since the end of World War Two: that the US should seek and maintain …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":30445,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,1428,285,31],"class_list":["post-30444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-policy","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n