How Trump has divided the world and how he wants to change the international order
National security strategies, released from time to time by every US administration, often say little and are quickly forgotten.
The latest one, however, issued by the Trump administration late last week, is the exception. It is must reading, for it previews the biggest redirection of US foreign policy since the dawn of the Cold War 80 years ago.
Read more about the new US national security strategy and what it means in the column by Richard Haass, senior counselor at Centerview Partners: Trump’s pivot: what changes the new US security strategy announces.
According to the author, the document implicitly endorses a system of spheres of influence: the US will have the lead in the Western Hemisphere, Russia and the EU will be left to sort it out in Europe, and China will have a large say in Asia’s future so long as it doesn’t go too far.
Haass notes that the document doesn’t mince words here: "The outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations."
"The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over," the Senior Counselor at Centerview Partners emphasises.
What immediately stands out to the author is that US actions are determined more by what is of direct benefit to the US economy, individual US businesses, and the security of the homeland.
"Allies are considered allies only so long as they assume a much larger share of the defense burden," Haass points out.
According to him, the biggest change is that the Western Hemisphere, long largely ignored, is now at the center of America’s national-security policy. It comes first in the list of what the United States wants in and from the world; it is discussed at length before every other region.
The Indo-Pacific is the silver medalist in terms of attention in terms of prominence, with preventing conflict around Taiwan as a key priority. By contrast, the administration wants to downsize America’s role in the Middle East, which has dominated US foreign policy for much of the past 35 years.
"Europe comes in for the harshest treatment," the Centerview Partners advisor observes.
He notes that the European Union is depicted as undermining liberty and sovereignty.
Overall, the author argues, treatment of Europe is negative, patronizing, and ominous.
Russia, by contrast, gets off easy, Haass stresses.
"It is not treated as an adversary. The push for peace in Ukraine is unconditional. And Russian President Vladimir Putin will take comfort in the stated goal of reestablishing "strategic stability with Russia" and in what is said about NATO, namely, that the time has come to end "the perception, and prevent the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance,’" the Senior Counselor at Centerview Partners writes.
Thus, he concludes that the era in which the US anchored alliances and international institutions, stood up for democracy and human rights, and was prepared to sacrifice for the rule of law and the balance of power around the world, has ended.
"The world is likely to become a messier, less free, and less prosperous world is the likely result, in no small part because this administration has more than three years left to run," the author believes.
According to him, Russia and China will find opportunity here while traditional friends and allies in Europe and Asia will experience greater risk and face difficult choices. The only certainty is that a historical era is ending, and a new one is beginning.