The New World Disorder

The New World Disorder

Kagan on whether we’re entering a new period of history:

Normally, wearing my historian hat, I’m reluctant to say things have changed radically, because there’s usually tremendous continuity. And that’s particularly been true of American foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. It’s not that there haven’t been huge debates about American foreign policy, but mostly American policy, with a new administration, regardless of the rhetoric they’ve run on, is about 10 percent one way or 10 percent the other way in terms of our foreign policy.

But now I think we’re at a moment of a real break and a real discontinuity—and the beginning of a return to, I think the best way to put it is, “normal” international relations. Normal international relations are a very dangerous situation. We sort of take for granted the degree of peace that we’ve enjoyed over the past eight decades, the degree of prosperity, etc. And we sort of think that’s the norm. The norm is actually a lot more like what the world looked like before 1945. Certainly, the previous hundred years were one of constant great-power warfare. And I don’t think people are really quite ready for that, for the world that we’re now moving into.

On the consequences for the geopolitical order when the United States is an unreliable ally:

Trump has put us back in the position that we were in the ‘20s and ‘30s. We could help a country if we decide to help them. We don’t have to help them if we don’t decide to help them. This year we’re aligned with these guys; this year we’re aligned with that guy.

But it’s the permanence and reliability of the [post-1945] system that has been such a great force for peace.

For instance, the fact that the British could not necessarily be relied upon to come to France’s defense in 1914 had a huge impact on German calculations. If the Kaiser had known for sure that the British were going to come in on the side of the French, he would not have gone to war.

This whole notion that we are trapped into wars by the commitments we make to our allies—I think the opposite of that is true. We have not had to fight for any treaty ally. It is the reliability of the commitment that is the source of stability. And right now, we are absolutely anything but reliable.

On threats we face in Europe and Asia:

It’s hard to really get in the heads of both Putin and Xi Jinping. But I would say it would be logical for them to believe that they can’t count on the United States being Trumpy forever, that certainly the history of the United States is one where eventually we come back, and then we go to war and we defeat you.

In which case, I would say the urgency of getting done what you need to get done if you’re Putin is more than people think. I think there’s a lot of assumptions that whatever happens in Ukraine, he’s going to need years to deal with it. By the way, exactly the same arguments that were made about Japan in the 1930s—“It’ll take a while. We’ll have years to be ready for the next thing.”

It is clear that Putin’s building up a military that is not only about Ukraine, but also about Europe. And what some people are calling “phase zero operations” in Europe, which are really extensive, need to be understood as probes of European defense capabilities. And so if we have three years of Trump, I wonder whether Putin in particular—but maybe also Xi—thinks this is the time to make the move before the Americans have recovered their understanding of what needs to be done.

On Trump’s rejection of liberal principles:

One of the aspects of the turning point today is precisely that Trump, I think, is the first post–World War II president who does not share those basic liberal values. He doesn’t share them in terms of American domestic politics. And in foreign policy, his movement is also hostile to liberalism. They support all kinds of anti-liberal movements and governments around the world. And so that essential sort of ideological binding [of a commitment to liberalism broadly understood], which I think was kind of an essential glue to the whole system—that is gone.

All the presidents since World War II have shared that liberal outlook. So even Barack Obama, who I think was not happy with the American grand strategy—at the end of the day, he was unwilling to basically turn against the entire order in the same way. And that’s what’s different about Trump. He is willing to turn against the order.

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At the end of the day, all you need to know is Trump is a fool, his Administration is crooked as a snake, and if Trump's lips are moving, he's lying.