Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Liberal World Order

The post-World War II liberal world order, defined by open markets, rules-based international cooperation and a benign American hegemony, has brought unprecedented peace and prosperity to the world. Yet it is now under threat from nationalists and isolationists in Europe and the United States as well as revisionists in China, Iran and Russia.

  • Trump Unites Foreign-Policy Thinkers in Despair

    American F-35 fighter jets
    Four American F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fly over the amphibious assault ship USS America in the Pacific Ocean, November 20, 2016 (USN/Andy Wolfe)

    Donald Trump heralded a new era of American isolationism last week, proclaiming in his first public address as president, “From this day forward, it’s going to be only America First.”

    It remains to be seen how far Trump will go in reversing seven decades of American grand strategy, but he has already united Republican-leaning thinkers who normally disagree on foreign policy in despair.

    On the neoconservative side, Charles Krauthammer, an advocate of the Iraq War, insists that Trump is wrong to portray American support for its allies as a mindless act of charity. Rather, it has been an exercise in enlightened self-interest:

    After all, it was indeed better to subsidize foreign armies — German, South Korean, Turkish and dozens of others — and have them stand with us, rather than stationing even more American troops everywhere around the world at greater risk of both blood and treasure.

    The international system of open commerce and democratic alliances that America has presided over since the late 1940s has enabled it, and the West generally, to grow and thrive, argues Krauthammer.

    “Global leadership is what made America great,” he writes — playing on Trump’s promise to make America great “again”. (more…)

  • Trump Announces American Retreat from the World

    Barack Obama Donald Trump
    American president Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, bid farewell to Barack and Michelle Obama in Washington DC, January 20 (DoD/Marianique Santos)

    Donald Trump has given the world a chilling preview of his foreign policy.

    In his inaugural address as president, the businessman promised to break with decades of international trade policy and “put America first”.

    Trump said he would protect the United States “from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.”

    “Protection,” he maintained, “will lead to great prosperity and strength.”

    That is not what the last century has taught us. (more…)

  • Goodbye, Mr President

    Air Force One Maryland
    American president Barack Obama disembarks Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, February 6, 2015 (White House/Chuck Kennedy)

    I wasn’t a fan of Barack Obama eight years ago, when we started the Atlantic Sentinel. It unnerved me how many people, especially here in Europe, fell over themselves to praise the new president and I disagreed with his policies.

    Now I’m sad to see him go.

    It’s not just that the Democrat looks like a paragon of grace and wisdom compared to his Republican successor, although Donald Trump’s shortcomings in both regards are profound.

    It’s that I’ve become less right-wing and Obama was a better president in his second term than in his first. (more…)

  • Predictability versus Chaos: Where China and Russia Diverge

    Guangzhou China
    Guangzhou, China at night, September 16, 2013 (Johnas)

    China and Russia have often been bundled together as representing the single most serious challenge to the West. Without doubt these two states share a number of views on world politics and also have a host of similar interests. But it is where they differ that is more telling about their relationship with the West and the international order in general.

    An interesting pattern has been unfolding for the past couple of months. Russia has been betting on growing chaos in the West. It cheered both Brexit and Donald Trump’s election victory. Russian support for populist forces in Europe can be traced back to the establishment of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation in Paris in 2008.

    China, in turn, has been much more cautious. It chose predictability, favoring the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union and tilting toward Hillary Clinton as a slightly better option, even though there were voices in the Chinese debate favoring Trump.

    If both China and Russia are dissatisfied with the West, why these stark differences? (more…)

  • Trump Could Dismantle Western International Institutions

    I am sitting at Madrid airport reflecting on the reality of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential elections yesterday. We live in a very different world from last night. The American president may be constitutionally constrained by the separation of powers, but Trump will govern with Republicans controlling both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

    In any case, in foreign policy, which most directly concerns those of us outside the US, the president has considerable executive freedom of action.

    Trump has been vague about his foreign policy. In part this is because it is an area he understands little.

    However, there have been some indications. (more…)

  • The West Must Not Lose Greece the Way It Lost Russia

    Alexis Tsipras Martin Schulz
    Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and European Parliament president Martin Schulz answer questions from reporters in Brussels, February 4 (European Parliament)

    Belying the official line of Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras that a “no” vote in Sunday’s referendum about the latest bailout offer from the nation’s creditors was not a vote on whether or not to stay in the euro, political and economic realities now point inexorably toward a “Grexit”.

    Although a conciliatory tone was struck by the eurozone’s laggards Italy and Spain, the main anchors of the currency bloc are losing patience.

    In Germany, the rhetoric of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat grassroots has hardened substantially. One leading member of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria openly stated that Athens “chose a path of isolation” by rejecting what Merkel effectively presented as the final offer on the table. Even her Social Democratic partners admit they cannot see a path forward from here and that Greece must show greater flexibility than it has up to this point.

    Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte echoed the language of Berlin’s hardliners after the referendum results were announced, saying if Tsipras arrived at an emergency summit with proposals not closely resembling those its creditors put forward a week ago, the eurozone would be at an impasse. “There is no other choice,” he maintained. Greece “must be ready to accept deep reforms.”

    Finally, French president François Hollande, terrified of strengthening Marine Le Pen’s Euroskeptic forces but simultaneously concerned about giving a resurgent Nicolas Sarkozy too much political ammunition, abandoned his media-constructed role as a sympathetic go-between and issued a joint statement with Merkel demanding that Greece put out its own proposals to stay in the euro within two days. (more…)