dimanche 5 août 2018

Trump and the Liberal World Order

Right, for all the Drumpf!Drumpf!Drumpf! that gets bandied about. Trump is not Hitler, he is not Mussolini and he is most certainly not Bush II (:p)

Trump is something else entirely. Let's take us back to 1945, when the United States stood as the sole victor of World War II, and every one of its allies was utterly gutted by the war. It decided that instead of every country having their own sphere of influence and boundaries for trade, there would be a single global trade system guaranteed by the United States. And this has rendered large scale conflicts redundant as there was now a single set of rules for trade across the entire world, the one time in human history that there has been a true global hegemon. And it also allowed for levels of openness on so many subjects that were previously considered unthinkable. Civil Rights for minorities, LGBT rights, tolerance for immigration and multiculturalism.

Except, there were certain catches. The US had set up the Global Order as part of the Cold War, and it was designed with the intent of keeping the USSR contained. Unfortunately, once the USSR collapsed in 1991, there was no real debate on how to properly update it, so it remained stuck in 1991 for quite some time, even in new circumstances like 9/11 and the Global Financial Crisis. In the Obama administration, he marked the first major retreat of American power with him rescinding the "Red Line" declaration in 2013. In 2014, the Russians punched major holes into the Global Order with the Crimea conflict, as it had struck against a major tenet of said Order that national boundaries were to be as static as possible (Once a major power engaged in clay grabbing again, there was no turning back). In 2015, another blow was made against the Global Order, as Greece, still reeling from the financial crisis, was made to sign a humiliating deal with Germany that plunged it into the abyss until 2065.

In the United States, a country which had yet to fully adapt its foreign policy since 1991, the effects of the Global Order's decay were finally felt at large as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both took the fore. The major candidates spoke on different issues, but where they resonated was appealing to voters who felt that the Global Order had become obsolete and was harming them. Even in Europe, there are still echoes of Greece 2015 with Salvini, the V4, Kurz and the SD in Sweden.

On 8th November 2016 the Global Order was pushed past the point of No Return with the election of Trump. His presidency will usher in the end of the only Global Order ever seen in human history as America retreats from the world. Nationalist issues, long held in ice since 1945, are now returning to the fore with an unbridled vengeance.


via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2AK0dmJ

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