IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)
INDEX: 1. The problem: where is the Trump administration’s foreign policy going? - 2. What a President of the United States will never do - 3. American exceptionalism and the myth of splendid isolation - 4. Limits or decline of American power? - 5. Conceptual fetishism: multilateralism/unilateralism, unipolarity/multipolarity - 6. The dangerous contradictions of the Trump administration’s foreign policy
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| © Evan Vucci |
1. The problem: where is the Trump administration’s foreign policy going?
During an important speech on foreign policy in April 2016, Donald Trump thundered: “We are totally predictable. We tell everything. We’re sending troops. We tell them. We’re sending something else. We have a news conference. We have to be unpredictable. And we have to be unpredictable starting now”.
Indeed, uncertainty and variety of assessments about the course of the Trump administration’s foreign policy continue to be significant. What unites critics and supporters of the present Administration’s foreign policy is the fear or hope that, driven by nationalism, the United States may withdraw into what is called isolationism.
Also deliberately spread, confusion is such that it is worth examining the elementary parameters of US foreign policy – what a president will never do – and some fundamental concepts, which are also useful for understanding the particular contradictions of the current Administration.
It should be recalled that among US foreign policy specialists soon there was an area of diehard critics who considered the billionaire candidate for the US presidency totally inadequate – because of lack of preparation and temperament – for performing the functions of head of the executive and commander-in-chief.
There were even those who called him a sort of “Manchurian candidate”, that is an agent of Russian interests. Critics of candidate Trump included great part of the most important Republican Party intellectuals and neoconservative functionaries who were severe in their judgment.
In Europe, on the other hand, Trump’s success was greeted with enthusiasm by the xenophobic and nationalist right-wing in favour of leaving the European Union and the eurozone. In this case, enthusiasm for Trump was instrumental and seasoned with a considerable dose of hypocrisy that glossed over the fact that in any negotiation their small homelands would count for nothing in the face of the North American giant. But Trump is (was?) also appreciated by the Putinian and Russophile left as “another blow to imperialism”.
This could also be a combination of incompetence, ignorance, ingenuity and stupidity, but it is mostly the result of simple dissolution of the most basic criteria of understanding and evaluation of what imperialism is, be it North American or Russian or Chinese … .
For centrist allies and opinion leaders, the label of isolationism serves as an instrument for taking a position in diplomatic negotiations. These know very well that a US administration can raise its voice and beat its fists on the table, demand this and that (for example, a more adequate contribution to NATO costs), but never terminate the alliance itself.
They understand well that it is precisely the limits of the great American power – and the global dimension of North American capitalism – that make the reproduction of alliances indispensable.
A third position is thus outlined, in practice an obligation for those who have responsibility for government and must necessarily negotiate with the North American administration. If Trump is incompetent and inadequate, argue the optimists, a “madman” prone to dangerous blunders, the government officials and functionaries who put US foreign policy into practice can moderate the lines of the President or bring them back on track within normal limits.
For the optimists, the National Security Strategy (NSS) issued in December 2017 moves in this direction. However, for others the interest of a document like the NSS depends on the extent to which it is consistent with the worldview and personality of the President. For this reason, the 2017 NSS is not very reliable on important points.
Uncertainty is great but it can be reduced, as well as the optimism.
2. What a President of the United States will never do
Since the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the beginning of the construction of an ocean fleet commissioned by Theodore Roosevelt (assistant of the Navy Secretary in 1897-1898, under McKinley, and president from 1901 to 1909), and certainly since the First World War, the United States has acquired the capacity to project its military power all over the planet; and to a greater extent than any other advanced country, US capitalism extends far beyond national political boundaries, continuing to maintain a structurally central position in the world economy.
In this context, attention has to focus on the constitutional duties of the President of the United States as head of the executive and commander-in-chief – to preserve, protect and defend America and the Constitution.
America and the “American way of life”, of course, are no longer those of the Founding Fathers, so that the interests implicit in those duties are now vastly greater and more complex than they originally were.
Consequently, since the Great Depression and especially since the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War, the dimensions of the apparatus that make up the executive and the powers of the President have grown such as to alter the original constitutional balance.
The presidency is also imperial in domestic politics, but it is in foreign policy and in the use of military force that it has thrived in the most dramatic way.
This is clear from the words of various US presidents – from Bush Sr. to Trump – in the last three decades: “We are inescapably the leader of free world defence, the connective ring in a global alliance of democracies” (George H.W. Bush, 1990 NSS); “The need for American leadership abroad remains strong as ever” (Bill Clinton, 1996 NSS); “America cannot know peace, security and prosperity by retreating from the world. America must lead by deed as well as by example” (George W. Bush, 2006 NSS); “ … our national security interests must begin with an undeniable truth – America must lead” while renewing its leadership (Barack Obama, 2015 NSS); “The whole world is lifted by America’s renewal and the re-emergence of American leadership” (Donald Trump, 2017 NSS).
It is interesting how both Obama and Trump tie world leadership to internal renewal and the economy, albeit in very different – if not opposed – ways.
The notion that the United States should guide the development of world society is the political core of what is called hegemony, a term that has acquired a variety of meanings – especially when applied to international relations –, but understood here in the Gramscian sense: not mere dominion, but a “combination of force and consent which balance each other so that force does not overwhelm consent”, in order to achieve “intellectual and moral direction”.
That the combination of force and consent presents extreme variations in different regions of the world is an integral part of the exercise of hegemony. It must be emphasised, however, that the effectiveness of the foreign policy of a US administration in exercising leadership over allies consists precisely in being able to maintain the balance between force and consent.
The fact that the rulers of Europe and Japan fear the nationalistic isolationism of the United States, but not its internationalist commitment, is the best evidence of the extent to which North American hegemony has been internalised. The argument can be extended to cultural influence and to the fact that the United States remains an exceptional pole of attraction for immigration.
The position of leadership is indispensable both in the case of a policy that can be called “realist” and oriented towards maintenance of the balance of international power, and in the case that it appears animated by an “idealist” activism of the Wilsonian type; both in the case of a “defensive realism” approach – oriented towards maintenance of the statu quo – and in the opposite case of “offensive realism”, aimed at preventing the emergence of a competitor.
It is clear that a US President will never give up the absolute military superiority of the United States on the world stage. What does that imply? A massive nuclear arsenal; in the words of the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review issued by the US Department of Defense:
“ … the US Armed Forces will be capable of simultaneously defending the homeland; conducting sustained, distributed counterterrorist operations; and in multiple regions, deterring aggression and assuring allies through forward presence and engagement. If deterrence fails at any given time, US forces will be capable of defeating a regional adversary in a large-scale multi-phased campaign, and denying the objectives of – or imposing unacceptable costs on – a second aggressor in another region”.
At least since the end of the Cold War and for all administrations, the criterion that defines the military primacy of the United States is the ability to conduct military operations and win in “two major regional conventional contingencies” or “major regional conflicts”, that is in two important theatres and involving substantial enemy forces.
The reason the United States needs to be able to intervene in two theatres, calibrating priorities and pace of effort, is simple: to prevent an opponent from feeling it can seize the opportunity to act while American forces are blocked in a distant theatre.
Operationally, this is what defines American power and at the same time its limits, imposing the selection of areas and ways of intervention. The effective “great strategy” is the one that employs power with awareness of its limits.
The formula may vary and the threat of conventional forces has come to be applied to terrorism and in some cases the opportunity for humanitarian intervention in the name of “responsibility to protect”, but the point – as stated in the 2017 NSS – still remains: “to ensure that the regions of the world are not dominated by one power” … .
With the Trump administration, the threshold of potential use of the nuclear weapon has been lowered considerably, according to a logic that appears a further and dangerous development of the preventive war applied to an elusive enemy such as terrorism and its allies (more or less real or presumed).
Not only would the United States feel fully responsible “whichever State, terrorist group or other non-state actor supports or contributes to the efforts of terrorists to acquire or use nuclear devices”, but in the event of a nuclear attack by terrorists against the United States or its allies it would consider “the ultimate form of retaliation”, according to the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.
Furthermore, the “extreme circumstances” in which it would be possible to use the nuclear weapon now envisage “major non-nuclear strategic attacks that include but are not limited to attacks on the civilian population or infrastructure of the United States, allies or partners”, as well as on military objectives.
The nuclear posture is indicative of a particularly aggressive attitude that could be implemented through the use of conventional forces. The doctrine of the preventive attack could find new targets, according to a perception of threat subject to great discretion, propagandistic manipulation – as in the case of the alleged relationship between the Iraq of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda – and errors of judgment.
Finally, a President will never give up supporting the interests of US capitalism worldwide.
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The prosperity of North American capitalism is closely linked to the prosperity and expansion of world capitalism, which in this regard constitutes not only an end, but a means for ensuring the military-political primacy of the United States, both through the financing of its military expenditure and through the political influence resulting from its economic centrality, a fundamental component of hegemony.
There is no country or coalition of countries that can replace the United States as the centre of the global economy and its contradictions.
However widespread US interests are in the countries of the periphery of the world or former colonies, it is the structure of economic relations with other countries with advanced capitalism that is absolutely vital for North American capitalism. This is why the United States entered the two world wars that exploded in Europe, contributed to the rebirth of defeated enemies and pushed for European integration.
If – and this is an absurd hypothesis – China were to close up like an oyster turning its back on the benefits of the American market, it would give rise to a crisis, but nevertheless surmountable: India could take its place. And, in abstractly economic terms, much of Africa is expendable as a market and production platform.
“National interest”, that is what constitutes the interest of US capitalism in a given area or country, should not be identified with immediate economic interest, which can be irrelevant. Even in countries and areas where there is no consistent US economic interest, open or covert political or military intervention serves the objective of the local political stability necessary for the orderly metabolism of the world economy, as well as the interests of allies in the region.
For example, notwithstanding the humanitarian rhetoric, what made the Clinton administration decide to engage in Bosnia was the consideration that NATO’s credibility was at stake; at the same time, on the other hand, the genocide in Rwanda proceeded undisturbed.
There is also the consideration that the United States has always been an advocate of the “open door” approach to international trade and investment from abroad, opposed to territorial empires and therefore averse to the reconstruction of a sphere of influence of Russian imperialism or the formation of a sphere of influence of Chinese imperialism … .
This expresses the particular dynamism of US imperialism, which is the reason for its avant-garde position in the extension and deepening of capitalism on a global level. In general, this is the specificity and strength of capitalist imperialism compared with ancient imperialism, absolute states’ and “state socialisms”’.
Just as capitalist imperialism does not allow for a position of balance with regard to non-capitalist social forms, corroding them, subordinating them and eliminating them, so US imperialism does not admit the “balance of power” except temporarily.
The above should not be understood in a functionalistic and harmonic sense: indicating what a President will not do does not mean that he/she will act in the best way for “national interest”, that military power will not encounter resistance, that the development and extension of capitalism proceeds without contradictions – far from it.
Each of those “missions” has its own limits from the outset or finds them along the way, while the goal of one “mission” can conflict with that of another. Political-military security strategy and international economic policy strategy can become contradictory, as is clear in discourses on the economic costs of overextension of military commitments abroad.
After World War II, the United States contributed to the recovery and development of Germany and Japan not only for the purpose of containing communism, but also for economic convenience; however this, in turn, reduced the market share of the world market for US corporations.
Besides, the effectiveness of military action requires clarity of objectives and coherent command, which can fuel political contrasts with allies, and divergences and operational errors in the field during multinational military interventions.
3. American exceptionalism and the myth of splendid isolation
The isolationist characterisation of US foreign policy is devoid of scientific significance. Isolationism is a concept that should be set aside once and for all, relegated to the rest of intellectual trash.
For the United States, isolation has always been completely impossible and isolationism is at best an ideal, a way to emphasise the feeling of exceptionality, not an adequate concept for explaining its real foreign policy.
The image of the “city upon a hill” blessed by the Lord and given as an example to the people is the archetype of American exceptionalism, formulated in 1630 by John Winthrop in a sermon even before the ships of his group of settlers had touched the shores of the New World.
It was then natural to complete the ethical-social image of the religious mission of the colonial community with the geopolitical image of the United States as an island that the oceans protect from corrupt, despotic and warlike European monarchies.
Exceptionalism and isolationism were thus combined and the most authoritative expression of this is often pointed to in George Washington’s Farewell Address of September 1796, one of the most instructive documents in American political history. In his message, Washington indicated that it was in the interest of the United States to have the most extensive trade relations, while avoiding “artificial ties” with this or that nation of distant Europe, involvement in its alliances and conflicts, and the formation of permanent alliances.
The US isolationist tradition thus goes back in time, but isolation has always been an illusion for a commercial republic … .
History shows that isolation was already impossible at the time of naval blockades during the Napoleonic wars, the searches and seizures of American ships, the arrest and forced enlistment of American sailors of English origin, the quasi-naval war with France (1798-1800), the purchase of Louisiana, the commercial embargo established by Jefferson in 1805-1807, the expedition against the Barbary pirates of the Mediterranean and the 1812-1815 war with Great Britain.
Imprisonment of sailors, obstacles to ocean trade and naval blockade, incitement of Indians to go to war against the United States and killing of American settlers: these were the arguments raised by president James Madison in 1812 in his appeal to the Congress that led to declaration of war on Britain.
Certainly, its geographical position placed the new Republic far from direct confrontation with the concentrated force of European monarchies, but not from the risk of invasion and naval war: in 1812, Britain had an army of 600,000 men and 600 ships, compared with the 6,000 men and 16 vessels of North America’s regular armed force.
It is obvious that the balance of power in the American theatre was different, but not sufficient to prevent the British from occupying Washington for a day, forcing Madison and the government to flee, and setting fire to the White House and several other public buildings.
In short, if isolation was impossible in the era of sailing ships, muzzle-loading cannons and sabre in hand boardings, it is an absurdity in the era of ballistic missiles, nuclear warheads, world capitalism and global ecological problems.
What is called isolationism – a political line, not a geopolitical datum – is therefore something that includes the feeling of difference between the political and social system of the United States and that of the Old World.
In practice it has never meant a closing of the United States into an impossible economic and political self-sufficiency, but a certain way of interacting in the international arena: staying neutral in the face of conflicts in the Old World, while manoeuvring to its advantage, with diplomacy and war, in North America and the Caribbean basin – the American Mediterranean; opposing aggressive moves by the European powers in the Americas and their imperial mercantilism, while affirming the right of the United States to full freedom to trade and expand the “empire of freedom” on the continent and beyond – in the Pacific Ocean.
This is a fundamental difference between the development of capitalism in the United States and in Europe, between American informal imperialism – supported by but not reducible to military force – and the mercantilistic imperialism of the Old World, a combination of the pre-capitalist past and the capitalist present.
The “splendid isolation” of the North American state from European conflicts ended forever in 1917, a date which in all respects marks the transition of the United States from a regional power to a world power with the will and capacity to delineate the structure of international relations through its strategic and economic decisions and non-decisions.
4. Limits or decline of American power?
The development of capitalism is global, but structurally unequal: its contradictions are also expressed through the hierarchy of the system of States. And, subjectively, the great power induces great ambitions and produces great errors: hence the oscillations between rollback and containment, aggressive posture and detente.
It is known that omnipotence is the attribute of divine, not earthly power, yet there appears to be a sort of theology of disillusionment or illusion at work in the thesis of American decline which, from the discovery that power is not unlimited or constant, dates from its relentless obsolescence.
Despite the discourse on American decline having been around for half a century, the alleged challengers vanish one after the other.
For example: while leaving aside other considerations – such as the need to export to the US market – the fact remains that, no matter how large the domestic product of China may be, its product per inhabitant is at the level of Algeria and Montenegro, at equal purchasing power, and about ten times lower than that of the US dollar, which is then the measure that counts for the purpose of international power relations. Not to mention that the distribution of income in China is certainly more unequal than in the United States.
The decline of American power existed in relation to the post-Second World War situation; but that was an exceptional condition and not at all healthy for capitalism, where prosperity – like US interest – required that imbalance be corrected by producing new ones, but on a higher overall level of the world economy.
And yet, to quote Susan Strange’s Casino Capitalism, which of the major powers has greater capacity to exercise the structural power “to shape and mould the structures of production, knowledge, security and credit within which others have no choice but to live if they are to participate in the world market economy”?
The United States did not win the Cold War: this was archived in a concordant way as a fact of the past by the statements of Gorbachev and Bush Sr. at the end of the Malta summit of December 3, 1989, two years before dissolution of the Soviet Union.
What “won” the Cold War were the internal contradictions of China and the Soviet Union, their internal corrosion, the opportunism of the dominant castes (of their substantial fractions) that decided to transform social privileges that were dependent on position in the political hierarchy into private property.
But it is a fact that Chinese capitalism is dependent on American capitalism and, while it is true that the United States did not win the Cold War, it is also true that ultimately something was accomplished that had been pursued for decades, even creating a division between those who attribute the merit of the final result to all post-war administrations (for example, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to Carter) or to Reagan alone (second generation neoconservatives).
Faced with an occurrence that changes the history of the world such as the capitalist transformation of China, Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, the figures for the alleged “American decline” are trifling.
5. Conceptual fetishism: multilateralism/unilateralism, unipolarity/multipolarity
US foreign policy is mostly characterised by dichotomies: internationalism/isolationism, multilateralism/unilateralism, universalism/exceptionalism, interventionism/non-interventionism, hegemony/empire, hard power/soft power.
The use of these pairings could be mainly descriptive, but in fact it is strongly normative: it serves to indicate what should be the right policy. And, especially when they are used as if one term were the antithesis of the other, they do not really explain the policies actually pursued because, in practice, the peculiar nature of administrations and their particular tone result from the way in which all the trends expressed by those terms merge with each other, from their relative weight in defence or international economic policies, and in different moments and situations.
After criticism, they can only serve as generically descriptive terms, not as explanatory concepts.
For example: Obama vigorously insisted on multilateralism – economic as well as political and military, as with the Libyan crisis – and on compliance with international standards, but did not hesitate to act unilaterally, such as with the massive and lethal use of drones in countries with which the United States was not at war (Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen), and to give the go-ahead to an operation – the purge of Osama bin Laden – which violated the sovereignty of Pakistan in spectacular fashion.
The panorama becomes even more complicated if we consider that terms such as unilateralism and multilateralism refer to policies, while polarity (uni-, bi-, tri- or multi-) refer to the structure of the international system, as a matter of fact or a policy objective.
Logically, policies and structures can be combined in different ways: for example, the goal of maintaining or achieving a unipolar world can be pursued with a unilateral or multilateral policy; inversely, the goal of a multipolar world can be pursued in a unilateral or multilateral way.
So we can say that the American neoconservatives are unipolar and unilateralist, but paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan are multipolar and unilateralist, and most neoliberals are unipolar and multilateralist.
The European Union could be called multipolar and multilateralist, but how could Hitler or Stalin have been classified? Multipolar and unilateralist? And Russia or China today?
Could we say that, in order to make progress in the multipolar world and create one’s own spheres of influence – as opposed to the “hegemonism” of the United States, but also in latent contrast between them –, multilateralism and unilateralism are combined according to convenience and the opportunity to legitimise unequal relationships?
It is very doubtful whether a unipolar world ever existed or could exist; as for multilateralism, in reality it is a battlefield: the strongest can come to feel like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, or the latter can have a totally unbalanced relationship with the giant.
The dichotomies are even more misleading when applied as if their particular meaning remained unchanged when referring to a period of the 19th century, the period between the world wars, after World War II, the 1980s or the more recent international scene.
Changes in the balance of power among classes within countries and processes of national liberation, changes in national political regimes, relations between the great powers, lethality of armaments (the nuclear weapon marks an epochal discontinuity), and transformations of the world economy come into play.
The fundamental problem of the concepts of the prevailing theories of international relations which are variants of neorealism is that, although applied to different historical situations and to transformations of the international system of States, they are socially and historically indeterminate.
States are assumed as “black boxes”, their economy is considered only as regards the contribution to military power and their position in the structure of the international system; and dominant States oriented towards maintenance of the statu quo differ from revisionist States of the existing order, regardless of the specificity of their societies.
Consequently, the definition of “national interest” refers to the survival and integrity of the State, assumed as a fetish that conceals the stratification of society, the class nature of political power and the various international political interests that may derive from the contrasts among social classes.
When we take into consideration the subjectivity of statesmen and the perception of threats and opportunities, this is nevertheless placed in relation to a “national interest” that is wanted to be socially neutral.
The bipolar world of the Cold War was not simply divided between two blocs of States, but between two different social systems (capitalism and a totalitarian bureaucratic statism or “state socialism”). Inversely, the great powers of today’s multipolar world are unequal, but homogeneous as regards social relations: they are very different capitalisms.
Beyond the information content and interest of partial analysis, the prevailing theories of international relations are based on fetishism of the State and are seriously limited in explaining historical process – for example, collapse of the Soviet system.
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Another way of looking at the question is that US foreign policy oscillates between making the country an example for the world – therefore with limited inclination to interventionism – and acting as a crusader state actively engaged in promotion of democracy throughout the world.
The reality is much more complex and contradictory than these simplifications: for example, it can be said that the Bush Jr. presidency began under the banner of example and moderation, and then developed badly as a crusade against terrorism and for the “promotion of democracy”.
All US administrations between the 20th and 21st centuries have experienced considerable fluctuations, both in the face of development of their actions and because of unforeseen events.
Each administration has its own characteristic slogan “to sell” on the domestic and international political market, a certain rhetoric with which it seeks to differentiate itself from the previous one and which conveys a certain basic vision or attitude or a political priority.
Sometimes, more or less appropriately, there is talk of “doctrines”: containment of communism, “never another Cuba”, Vietnamisation, “hands off the Persian Gulf”, rollback (retreat of communism) and support for “freedom fighters”, “new world order”, engagement and enlargement, and so on.
These must be understood as tactical assumptions of the exercise of more or less soft or hard forms of power, ways of articulating relations between economic interests and geopolitics, of selecting political and military priorities, but always within the limits of the fundamental purposes indicated above.
All administrations inherit problems and policies, just as they all have to face new international problems with their internal repercussions. This is how both the relative continuity of the problems and policies and the specificities of the various administrations of US imperialism are defined.
They are in fact variations within historical periods which, taken together, are the result of developments in world society in which the American superpower plays its own cards – as indeed the Soviet Union in the past and Russia and China today –, which however escape the control of any political power.
6. The dangerous contradictions of the Trump administration’s foreign policy
With reference to foreign affairs, Teddy Roosevelt recommended: “Speak softly and carry a big stick, you will go far”. Trump instead shakes a big stick dangerously, but at the same time talks or “tweets” a lot, continuously and provocatively.
On strategic ground, the Trump administration intends to relaunch the “unipolar moment” following the Soviet collapse – when America emerged as the lone superpower (2017 NSS) –, recovering, in his opinion, the time wasted since the early 90s and especially, of course, by Obama, which allowed other players to implement consistently “their long-term plans to challenge America”.
A first consideration is that this “unipolar moment”, even if it ever existed, sank in the first decade of the new century. The window of opportunity has closed and cannot be opened with nostalgia, but it can still be dangerous precisely because it is unrealistic.
Secondly, the maintenance or restoration of a unipolar system of unquestionable primacy requires what in jargon is called multilateralism, which does not at all mean privileging the United Nations and the imperialist oligarchy of its Security Council (as China and Russia, which there have veto power, would like), but strengthening and extending alliances avoiding above all irritating and offending political allies and international economic partners in various ways for internal propaganda purposes.
Even the neoconservatives most prone to unilateral actions that spurn the United Nations have never underestimated the importance of NATO and the creation of ad hoc alliances: from their point of view, the determination of the United States to act, “if necessary” in a unilateral way – an omnipresent formula –, is not the opposite of multilateralism, but a way of promoting it in terms corresponding to the “national interest” of the United States, which would be that of the world.
The neoconservative principle states that it should be the mission that creates alliances, not vice versa. In the meantime, however, Republican neoconservatives have at least partly learned the lesson, tending to converge with neoliberal Democrats on the idea of building a “concert of democracies” that can act collectively: in this case the mission would coincide with the nature of the alliance.
Finally, political primacy and military intervention require that concessions be made at the economic level: reconciling the claim to be the international political leader of an open world economy with intransigent and narrow-minded economic nationalism is improbable.
All US administrations have placed the problem of costs on the allies, and not without positive results; nevertheless the question should be treated diplomatically and delicately, not trumpeted to the four winds with blackmailing tones.
This explains the harsh judgments of Trump by so many aggressive neoconservatives, as well as neoliberals.
Before assuming the presidency it would have been possible to interpret Trump’s foreign policy as vaguely Nixonian, but inverted: approach Russia to put pressure on China. Already very problematic, this possible line seems to have fallen and been almost overturned.
Richard Nixon worked coherently in a particularly critical moment: in a nationalistic move, declaration of the inconvertibility of the dollar extended the freedom of economic manoeuvre of the United States, albeit also with unexpected effects.
At the same time he started “Vietnamisation” of the war and began a special relationship with Mao’s China, thus putting pressure on the Soviet Union, almost a de facto alliance which, in retrospect, can be understood as the beginning of the end of Stalinist-style “communism”.
Further, after the Soviet collapse, a certain coherence of intent between political strategy and economic strategy can also be seen in the policies of Bush Sr. and Clinton in the management of transition in Central and Eastern Europe, in enlargement of NATO, in promotion of international economic agreements, in liberalisation of economies – the so-called Washington Consensus – and in multilateral military interventions.
Obama tried to scale back the political failures of the adventurism of Bush Jr. – who for a few years had been favoured by a giant speculative bubble – by re-launching economic multilateralism and “resetting” relations with Russia, until explosion of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, a popular revolt against one of the oligarchies that alternated in power (in this case the one centred on the Donbass and most linked to Russia) in which the Western powers and Russia obviously looked after their interests and played their dirty games.
Finally, Obama began an economic and a politico-military reorientation towards Asia.
As already mentioned, the unilateralism/multilateralism dichotomy is not adequate for explaining foreign policy, which is always a mixture that varies with situations, time and also fields: it is a problem to create situations of mediation that lead to a balance between national security strategy and international economic policy.
Trump, however, disregards already agreed economic agreements, threatens trades wars and withdraws from climate agreements. He says he wants to put an end to the most important strategic agreement in which the European Union participates, the one with Iran on its nuclear programme (he seems to have been contradicted by his secretary of State, Rex Tillerson).
He uses brinkmanship (…) to handle the nuclear issue with North Korea, while it should diplomatically involve China, Russia and Japan, as in the past. He also recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a symbolic move that is a slap in the face of the hypocrisy of international diplomacy.
His restructuring of taxation, the increase in military spending and the request to finance a vague investment programme in infrastructures is likely to lead to an increase in public debt that is indigestible for the tax orthodoxy of members of Congress.
Trump moves like a bull in a china shop, so that contradictions are added to contradictions.
In the language of international relations, as regards the strategy of “national security”, the unipolarist intent is in contradiction with the line of unilateralism; in turn, that intent is contradicted by the nationalism of economic strategy which allows a multipolar world, but populated by unfair competitors that have to be brought back to order.
The America First strategy essentially seems to have been designed to win the elections and from a reductively nationalistic point of view, not up to the whole, global and long-term interests of American capitalism and its allies.
America First is actually America Alone, and this cannot last. Paradoxically, it combines a megalomaniac line that ignores the limits of American military power with underestimation of the force of attraction of its capitalism.
If Trump wanted to be unpredictable, he certainly succeeded. It is the reason for the uncertainty, confusion and variety of assessments about the course of his foreign policy.
Unpredictability itself is destabilising and can be understood as an effective strategy against an opponent, but against allies? And for how long can it work? How useful is it for the credibility of the aims pursued? Is it not the attitude of a poker player inclined to bluffing? And what will happen when the other players want to “see” the cards?
For more than twenty years, the government of North Korea has been following a tactic with a pattern that is now clear: periodically and deliberately raising tension, then negotiating to obtain something in return for an apparent step backwards in its nuclear programme, until the next tension-negotiated time.
When Trump “tweets” in response to the dynastic heir of North Korea: “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his”, it could bring to mind certain confrontations between kids, but it also shows a dangerous tendency towards brinkmanship.
In this scheme of things, a first risk is that the game gets out of hand; or that the boasted about North American “button” proves to be a disappointment, with consequent loss of credibility.
From the point of view of the interests of imperialism, Trump’s foreign policy is inconsistent and wrong in method and merit – he is the worst President since the Second World War, probably even for a century. Optimists hope it can be properly corrected: but they must come to terms with the definitive imperial nature that the presidency assumed around the middle of the 20th century.
Presidential power in the fields of defence and foreign policy has extended far beyond the letter of the Constitution and is defended in terms and for situations that would have been unacceptable even for the most interventionist of 19th century Presidents.
The trend is irreversible because it rests on structural changes in American society and relations with the world: for this reason the “imperial presidency” can be understood as a gradual accumulation of precedents and a voluntary delegation of powers by Congress.
With resolutions such as those on Formosa’s defence in 1955, on the Middle East in 1957, following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the authorisation to use military force on September 14, 2001 – to cite some historical examples –, the Congress has voluntarily and enthusiastically handed over to the President of the day the power that the Constitution attributes to it: deciding when and against whom to declare war and to authorise limited military operations other than in self-defence.
The fact is explained by bipartisan convergence around the fundamental objectives of foreign policy and is legitimised by the ever-increasing extension of the concept of defence, up to preventive action even before a threat is manifested concretely. The thesis is at the least constitutionally very debatable, but materially consistent with the global dimension of US imperialism and the resistance it has to deal with.
However, the strength of the “imperial presidency” is not an invariable given. When Congress wants to exercise its deliberative and controlling powers, then the imperial character of the presidency is reduced (as in the first years after the Watergate scandal), or it must take directions that are politically and criminally risky.
The worst moment for Reagan, for example, was the Iran-Hezbollāh-Contra scandal, originating from the fact that the Administration had to find a way to circumvent the limits and prohibitions imposed by Congress on the financing of anti-Sandinista guerrillas: a completely illegal intercontinental fraud involving the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages held by Hezbollāh in Lebanon, and then channelling the 18 million dollars gained from the exchange to the Contras in Nicaragua.
Clinton’s foreign policy was heavily influenced by the Republican majority in Congress: the situation of divided government – presidency and majority of both chambers from different parties – is now more frequent than in the past and may therefore weaken the administration’s line or reject initiatives, such as the ratification of treaties.
The contrast concerns the means and methods, not the fundamental aims of foreign and defence policies: nevertheless, in certain crises it can have important consequences.
In addition to the rivalry between parties, the attitude of Congress towards the President’s foreign policy depends on factors such as the success of presidential initiatives, the popularity of the President (and thus the convenience or not for legislators to align with the administration), and the intensity with which an international threat is perceived, which makes it possible to play the patriotic card of rallying round the flag, of national unity.
On the other hand, the stronger the opposition to war in society and the lower the popularity and legitimacy of a President – and Trump won 2.9 million votes less than Hillary Clinton, a negative record –, the greater the repercussions on relations between President and Congress and the divergences among and within elements of the state apparatus.
The unsurpassed levels of popularity peaks for Bush Sr. at the beginning of the attack on Iraq and for Bush Jr. after the attacks of 2001 did not prevent the former from losing the 1992 presidential elections and the latter from sinking into unpopularity, again unsurpassed.
Trump was unable to prevent Congress from approving a law that envisaged new sanctions against Russia (and Iran and North Korea) at the end of July 2017. A certain freedom for manoeuvre in the more or less rapid and effective application of these sanctions obviously remains with the head of the executive, but the obligation remains: on this basis, in fact, he is criticised.
It is a constraint determined by an overwhelming two-party majority that is a clear sign: 98 in favour and 2 against in the Senate, 419 in favour and 3 against in the House of Representatives. Curiously, these votes are almost identical to those for the resolutions on the Gulf of Tonkin (88 to 2 in the Senate, 416 to 0 in the House) and of September 14, 2001 (98 to 2 in the Senate, 420 to 1 in the House).
Consequently, the optimists’ hopes are not without foundation; however they are very precarious and uncertain. Adjustments to worldview, rhetoric and electoral promises should be so important as to result in a decidedly non-Trumpian foreign policy. This would be quite a problem for the coherence and credibility of the President of the major world power, who cannot be easily removed nor does he appear to have serious health problems, at the moment.
From the point of view of the oppressed and exploited, is this good news? Not exactly, because the “normal” imperfections of imperialism are compounded by the dangers that can arise from incoherence and unpopularity.
Gallup polls reveal that the approval rate for Trump is at the level of that of Bush Jr.’s second term: an average of 39 and 37% respectively – a disaster that is all the more significant because the United States is not currently in recession and the unemployment rate is at the lowest since the beginning of the century.
This is the final consideration: if the idea that the 9/11 attacks were fabricated by some body of the US government is idiotic, we cannot exclude that Trump will create some international crisis in the hope that the people will unite around the flag he has waved.
[translation from Italian by Phil Harris (for IDN-InDepthNews)]
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