Does The World Need America?

One of the highlights (lowlights?) of the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was the discussion of America’s role in supporting Ukraine against Russia. Asked repeatedly, Trump refused to say whether he would unequivocally support Ukraine, whether he wanted Ukraine to win or even if he thought that Ukrainian sovereignty was in the U.S. national security interest. This starkly contrasts with the staunch support from both the Biden administration and much of the current Congress since Russia's invasion in February 2022.

In a related vein, at a conference I attended in Berlin this week, multiple members of the German government made it clear that they fully anticipated a waning of American support for Ukraine and that going forward, Germany and the entire European Union would have to increase aid and their own defense spending in order to counter Russia not just in Ukraine but as a long-term threat to Europe as a whole.

For many, the seeming retreat of the United States as the primus inter pares of global security is a huge negative. Bob Kagan of the Brookings Institution has been one of the primary voices crystallizing that view, arguing in pungent prose that if the U.S. ceases its post-World War II role, the world will become a jungle of conflict and chaos.

That view is shared by much of the foreign policy establishment in Washington. In the words of long-time mandarin and current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “When our country is not engaged, when we’re not leading, then either one of two things will happen.  Either someone else is, and probably not in a way that advances our own interests and values, or maybe, just as bad, no one is, and then you tend to have vacuums that are more likely to be filled by bad things before they’re filled with good things.  So there’s a premium on our engagement and on our leadership.”

In that worldview, a United States that is anything other than all-in in the defense of Ukraine, or presumably a future defense of Taiwan against mainland Chinese aggression, places global stability in peril and paves the way for autocrats and aggressors to pursue the naked self-interest that led to world wars in the first part of the 20th century. Thirty years ago, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the United States “the indispensable nation” because of its unique combination of principle and power and its willingness to use that power to carve a world order in line with those principles. That was fully in sync with the consensus of leading Americans during the Cold War, who viewed the United States as the lone bastion of freedom standing between “godless Communism” and the liberal capitalist democratic world that America sought to create.

And yet, part of the point of the international system created after World War II was to enable all sovereign nations to thrive and prosper in peace. The point of the Marshall Plan and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and various UN agencies, not to mention USAID and foreign aid and the Export-Import Bank and the World Trade Organization, was to deploy American wealth and ingenuity to create a world of capitalist democracies that would be bound by mutual interests and some shared values and hence not require constant vigilance alongside the ever-present threat of war. The goal in the middle of the 20th century was to get to a point in the 21st century where the world was, if not self-governing, then at least sufficiently stable and prosperous to allow the United States not to be the guarantor of capitalism and the world’s policeman. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, it seemed as if that promise might be fulfilled.

Read an article I wrote in 2020 — The Anti-American Century: The old U.S.-led order has crumbled. What will replace it may be just what the world—and the United States—needs.

As we approach the second quarter of the 21st century, many Americans—and quite a few in other nations—still believe that American power, whether economic, military, or diplomatic, is the key to preventing the world from descending into chaos. Yet, no matter who wins the 2024 presidential election, the United States is indeed turning inward, much as it did a century ago in the 1920s. Recall that after World War I, the U.S. refused to join the League of Nations, passed the most restrictive immigration law in its history (in 1924), and embraced tariffs. Today, the same tune is being played—though with milder tones by the Democrats and louder, more strident ones by the Republicans—but it is still being played by both.

And that may not be a bad thing. In fact, it might be a very good thing, for the world writ large if not for American domestic politics. The U.S. will hurt itself by making immigration harder, but in the global competition for skilled and unskilled labor, if those immigrants and migrant workers don’t come to the U.S., they will go elsewhere and benefit the societies that welcome them. If the U.S. creates trade barriers, other countries will work together to form trade blocs and tariff-free zones, as has already happened since the Trump administration pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And if the U.S. reduces its military and economic aid to Ukraine, the countries most directly impacted – Germany, Poland, the Baltics, Finland, and the rest of the European Union – will step up to fill that gap.

Rather than viewing America’s retreat as a net negative, we should consider that it could be a net positive. While using a parent-child analogy might be flawed (after all, the U.S. is younger than most other states, not older), it is still useful: at some point, the parent has to let go so the child can become (or have the chance to become) a flourishing adult. The umbrella of American power has been infantilizing to the rest of the world and carries the assumption that Americans are uniquely capable of being guardians of collective goods such as security and economic prosperity. That’s quite a slap in the face to the other 7.5 billion people on the planet, as well as the nearly 200 other countries.

The knee-jerk response to my argument often goes something like “it is naïve to believe that the world won’t descend into dog-eat-dog power struggles without a hegemon to keep it strong.” The problem of arguing for stability in the absence of American active and constant engagement is that it hasn’t been tested, and people can always invoke the simplistic view of history that says, well, look what happened before the United States emerged as a global power as a proof statement. You can’t prove what the world will be if the United States recedes inward, but come on, if proof is the bar for making the argument, then the U.S. can never stop being the world’s policeman and never stop making problems everywhere its own.

And of course, the idea that the United States has not been a self-interested and often hypocritical actor in global affairs is ridiculous. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 may have been the most misguided and calamitous use of military force since Hitler invaded Russia, with disastrous effects on the stability and security of the entire Middle East (which wasn’t basking in stability and security before 2003). The use of economic sanctions to contain China may be justifiable if one views China as an existential threat to capitalist democratic societies but the way the Treasury Department attempts to force other countries to abide by American policies is more coercive than collaborative, more an act of economic imperialism than that of selfless guardian of liberal democracy.

So, we should resist the easy lure of lament that the United States is turning inward and less willing or able to serve as the world’s guardian. A world of multiple nodes of power, where multiple societies strive in their own messy and inconsistent way to maintain peace, order and prosperity is a world more representative of its billions of striving souls than one held together by the inconsistent power of one country. And a world where the United States is not involved in every conflict should surely be welcome by millions of Americans and billions of world citizens who understand, viscerally at least, that a country that makes all problems its problem is a two-edged sword, great when it’s on your side as well as moral and competent and not so good when it isn’t.

Maybe those who view America’s retreat as an unalloyed danger will be proven right. I believe this retreat is a blessing.  That’s not naïve. What’s naïve – and frankly absurd - is the conviction that Americans have a monopoly on peace and security. The European Union has ample resources to support Ukraine and contain Russia. The Saudis, Israelis, and Qataris have the money and power to manage Gaza, address the Palestinian issue, and deal with Iran. India is a growing force in Asia that will soon counter China, if it hasn’t already. The United States will remain the largest economy with unrivaled military and economic power for decades to come, but the assumption that without America’s active engagement, chaos will ensue is just that—an assumption. Humans everywhere, along with their countries, are just as capable of creating peace and stability, and we should welcome a world where that responsibility is shared, not solely American.