![]() If the administration that succeeds Trump’s wants to repair the damaged world and rebuild a stable international order, it ought to use history-not as a judge but as a wise adviser. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” as Mark Twain is reputed to have said, and it rhymes enough to make one uneasy. One can only imagine the chain of potentially catastrophic events that could be set in motion if Chinese and American naval ships or airplanes collided in the South China Sea today. Had Archduke Franz Ferdinand not been assassinated in Sarajevo in June 1914, World War I might not have erupted. It also shows that at times of heightened tension, accidents can set off explosions like a spark in a powder keg, especially if countries in those moments of crisis lack wise and capable leadership. The history of the first half of the twentieth century demonstrates all too vividly that unchecked or unmoderated tensions can lead to extremism at home and conflict abroad. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an economic downturn reminiscent of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Just as China is challenging the United States today, the rising powers of Germany, Japan, and the United States threatened the hegemonic power of the British Empire in the 1910s. Today’s unstable world, however, looks more like that of the 1910s or the 1930s, when social and economic unrest were widespread and multiple powerful players crowded the international scene, some bent on upending the existing order. In the decades ahead, perhaps China and the United States can likewise work out their own tense but lasting peace. Will the coming decades bring a new Cold War, with China cast as the Soviet Union and the rest of the world picking sides or trying to find a middle ground? Humanity survived the original Cold War in part because each side’s massive nuclear arsenal deterred the other from starting a hot war and in part because the West and the Soviet bloc got used to dealing with each other over time, like partners in a long and unhappy relationship, and created a legal framework with frequent consultation and confidence-building measures. And although the damage is difficult to measure, the United States has lost much of its moral authority. allies and his attacks on NATO and the EU have weakened ties that have served the United States and its partners well for decades. Renouncing arms control agreements has made the world a more dangerous place. Washington’s fitful and chaotic response to the pandemic has made the population of the United States and those of its neighbors more vulnerable to the virus, and by pulling the United States out of the World Health Organization, Trump is undermining its ability to deal with the current pandemic and the ones bound to come. ![]() Flattery for dictators, especially coming from the leader of the most powerful state in the world, does not make them reasonable it feeds their egos and appetites. ![]() These troubled times are not all Trump’s fault, but he has made things worse. Looming over everything is climate change. The world is struggling to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and is just coming to appreciate the magnitude of its economic and social fallout. In Brazil, Hungary, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia, a new crop of strongman rulers has emerged. Russia, under its president for life, Vladimir Putin, carries on brazenly as a rogue state, destabilizing its neighbors and waging a covert war against democracies through cyberattacks and assassinations. ![]() China has become more assertive and even aggressive. Whenever he leaves office, in early 2021, 2025, or sometime in between, the world will be in a worse state than it was in 2016. The evidence-something that historians, at least, take seriously-suggests a different picture. When he has paid attention to history, it has been to call on it as a friendly judge, ready to give him top marks and vindicate him: his administration, he has claimed repeatedly, has been the best in U.S. “What’s this all about?” he is reported to have asked on a visit to the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, in Hawaii, in 2017. President Donald Trump largely ignores the past or tends to get it wrong.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |