A protester waves an upside-down American flag in front of the Capitol, on March 4, in Washington.Julia Demaree Nikhinson/The Associated Press
For decades now, critics of the United States have complained about how it was throwing its weight around, trying to impose its form of capitalism and democracy on the rest of the world. Who gave Washington the right to act as the world’s policeman? Who put it in charge of global affairs and institutions? Who made Uncle Sam boss?
Well, now we are seeing what happens in a world without American leadership. It is not pretty. Under Donald Trump, the United States is pulling back from its leading role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization – pillars of the international order. He claims the U.S. has been played for a chump by other world powers, left to pick up the tab for maintaining the peace while its shores are flooded by products from other places. If things don’t change, the U.S. will simply take its ball and go home.
That would suit the globe’s tyrants just fine. Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China say they want a multipolar rather than a unipolar world, by which they mean a world where they get their way without the opposition of the United States. The alternative to what its detractors call U.S. hegemony is something far worse.
Even before Mr. Trump won a second term, the big undemocratic powers were teaming up to challenge the existing order. Now they must be positively rubbing their hands with glee. Without U.S. backing, the alliances and agreements that held them in check would be immensely weakened.
Why the world is better than you think
Like it or not, U.S. power has enforced the general peace and rising prosperity the world has enjoyed in recent generations. Three times in the 20th century, the United States stepped forward to save the world, first from militarism, then fascism, then communism. It has been a continuing force for stability in the 21st century, anchoring history’s most successful military alliance, NATO; arming Ukraine in its life-and-death struggle with Russia and Taiwan against the threat from China; combating terrorist groups like the Islamic State.
It hasn’t done all of this solely from the goodness of its own heart, of course. The United States itself has prospered enormously from the reigning Pax Americana. That’s what makes Mr. Trump’s view of the world so strange. Despite what he says about the gutting of the U.S. economy, there is no need to make America great again. Its companies, from Amazon to Apple, are global leaders. The American economy has been on a tear, leading its rivals in growth and producing millions of jobs.
What benefited the United States generally benefited the rest of us. As I wrote last weekend, life for most people on Earth has improved by almost every measure, whether it is health, wealth, life expectancy or education. All of this has happened under the American umbrella.
Should we bow our heads in gratitude? No. The United States can be an annoying, pushy, often wrong-headed global power. Its mistakes are too numerous to mention.
But it remains what Madeleine Albright, a former secretary of state, called the world’s “indispensable nation.” Former U.S. president Barack Obama repeated the phrase, saying that “no other nation can play the role that we play in global affairs.”
The supposed perils of U.S.-led globalization pale beside the perils from an unwinding of the world trading system that could flow from Mr. Trump’s nonsensical tariffs. The threat from an America that imposes its democratic model on other nations is nothing compared with the threat of what could be imposed by its autocratic foes.
It is all very well to talk about how Europe must take more responsibility for its own defence, how France might provide a nuclear shield for others or how Canada should find new trading partners, but none of these are a replacement for the United States, the world’s biggest economy and by far and away its strongest military power.
If that was not clear before, it certainly is now. The tumultuous start of the second Trump presidency has shown beyond all doubt that the world needs U.S. leadership.