{"id":32182,"date":"2017-06-01T06:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T20:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=32182"},"modified":"2017-05-31T18:50:14","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T08:50:14","slug":"worlds-apart-john-mccain-angela-merkel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/worlds-apart-john-mccain-angela-merkel\/","title":{"rendered":"Worlds apart: John McCain and Angela Merkel"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

John McCain\u2019s speech in Sydney<\/a> this week offered an emotionally-appealing restatement of the orthodox, establishment view of Australia\u2019s alliance with America. In doing so the veteran Republican senator showed quite plainly why that view is inadequate as a basis for our thinking about the future of the alliance and Australia\u2019s place in Asia over coming decades. We\u2019d be wise to pay more attention to Angela Markel\u2019s remarks<\/a> in Bavaria last weekend.<\/p>\n

At the heart of McCain\u2019s speech was a simple and familiar argument. It is that America and Australia are allies not because we share interests and objectives\u2014what he called \u2018narrow materialism\u2019\u2014but because we share history and values. He spoke eloquently about our shared history, recalling his family\u2019s long connections with Australia as a military partner. And he spoke very directly about the role of shared values in underpinning and motivating the alliance.<\/p>\n

\u2018Why are we allies?\u2019, he asked, and offered this answer: \u2018The animating purpose of our alliance is that we are free societies\u2026who put our faith in the rule of law, and who believe that our destinies are inseparable from the character of the broader world order.\u2019<\/p>\n

He spoke of \u2018the rights and independence of the weak\u2019, the right \u2018to sail the seas, and fly the skies, and engage in commerce freely\u2019, and the need to resist those \u2018bent on injustice, and aggression, and conquest\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018These are values that time does not diminish,\u2019 McCain concluded. \u2018These are ideas that truly are worth the fighting for. This is why we are allies\u2014and why we must remain so.\u2019<\/p>\n

One can see the appeal of this. History and values are, by definition, enduring and unchangeable\u2014\u2018time does not diminish\u2019\u2014so those who passionately want the alliance to endure naturally give weight to them rather than to the shifting sands of interests and objectives.<\/p>\n

But reality must be allowed to intrude, and the reality is that alliances only endure when they demonstrably serve clear contemporary national objectives on both sides, and when the costs they impose are worth the benefits they bestow.<\/p>\n

Those who really care about the alliance and its future should look beyond the warm generalities of history and values and examine the cold facts. How far do our strategic interests and objectives converge with America\u2019s in the decades to come?<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t an abstract question. Each country needs to ask what exactly is\u2014in McCain\u2019s words\u2014\u2018worth fighting for\u2019 in Asia. Talk of values is cheap, but fighting for them against an adversary as powerful as China, as McCain seems to be suggesting, is not. Over the past few years it has become less and less clear that America is willing to accept the costs and risks of defending the regional order from China\u2019s challenge.<\/p>\n

That was so even before Americans elected Donald Trump, and it is much plainer now. McCain urged us to ignore Trump as an anomaly. He wants us to believe, as he does, that the real America remains committed to upholding its global leadership at any cost. But all the evidence from last year\u2019s election\u2014on both sides of US politics\u2014points the other way.<\/p>\n

Trump may be unprecedented, but he isn\u2019t an anomaly. His election is the clear consequence of long-standing trends in US politics. And while Trump might not last long, the trends and attitudes he represents, including his \u2018America First\u2019 isolationism, will persist.<\/p>\n

And why not? Traditionalists like McCain talk tough, but they have no credible ideas about how America should perpetuate its leadership in today\u2019s world. In particular, they have no idea what to do about China. McCain\u2019s \u2018Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative\u2019 is little more than a rebadged \u2018Pivot\u2019, and would fail just as the Pivot did, because it doesn\u2019t commit anything remotely approaching the massive resources required to meet China\u2019s challenge.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason for that. No one believes that Americans today would support a policy which commits the resources required. That means we would be very unwise to expect that America will sustain its leadership in Asia, and if it doesn\u2019t, then\u2014history and values notwithstanding\u2014it won\u2019t need Australia as an ally.<\/p>\n

Nor is Australia\u2019s commitment to supporting America nearly as clear-cut as our alliance rhetoric suggests. For all our tough talk, Australian governments haven\u2019t been willing to support America in pushing back against China in any way that might damage our standing in Beijing. And how much weight would our shared history and values have if we ever do have to choose whether to support America in a war with China?<\/p>\n

We aren\u2019t alone in facing these questions. Around the world America and its allies are struggling to understand what their alliances mean in a changed world in which America\u2019s relative power and resolve are much depleted, and it confronts major challenges in several key regions.<\/p>\n

This is the reality that Angela Merkel has acknowledged so frankly. It isn\u2019t just about Donald Trump. Under any president, how credible is it that America would risk a nuclear war with Russia to save Estonia from Vladimir Putin? Or Poland, come to that?<\/p>\n

The difference is that Merkel has the courage and candor to acknowledge the problem, which is the essential first step towards doing something about it. Senator McCain doesn\u2019t, and neither do we.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John McCain\u2019s speech in Sydney this week offered an emotionally-appealing restatement of the orthodox, establishment view of Australia\u2019s alliance with America. 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