Aaron Schwartz / EPA
The President of the United States, Donald Trump
When the US acted as a rule-maker rather than an extortionist, it bought something more valuable than fear: consent. This consent turns into leadership, in a system that other countries consider preferable to the alternatives. However, the world has changed.
Throughout history, the world’s most powerful countries have often faced difficulties finding friends. As one nation becomes dominant, the others tend to balance against it.
Just look at the Russia’s neighbors in Eastern Europe, where countries rushed to NATO as soon as they could, and to China’s neighborhood in Asia, where Japan, India, Australia, Vietnam and others have been strengthening their security ties with the US and each other in response to the rise of Beijing.
But then look at the US – and this theory starts to falter, he argues Fareed Zakariaauthor of “Age of Revolutions” and CNN presenter, in an opinion article on .
The United States is the most powerful nation in the world. However, so far, most of the world’s richest countries have not joined forces against the US; they allied themselves with them.
These countries delegate in the USA authority on fundamental security issues, welcome your strengthsintegrate their armies with yours. This is not normal in the long course of modern history. It is, in fact, almost uniquenotes Zakaria.
Why does this happen? It’s not because the USA is “holy”but because it is often behaved differently from that of a hegemonic power classic.
For eight decades since World War II, the United States has typically sought translate brute force into something that other countries could accept: rules, institutions and legitimacy.
During this period, the US built alliances instead of tax systems and spoke to language of principles – collective security, self-determination, open trade – even when they fell short of those ideals.
Let us consider an episode often presented as the icon of American unilateralism: the Iraq War.
The administration of George W. Bush sought and obtained authorization from Congress in 2002, and appealed to the UNhelping to secure Security Council Resolution 1441.
Bush also gathered a coalition of 49 countries supporting the intervention. Washington felt compelled to present argumentsbringing together partners, seeking justifications that were broad and accepted by others.
To be effort to translate power into legitimacy it has until now been the hidden pillar of American primacy. When the US acts as a rule-maker rather than an extortionist, buy something more valuable than fear: consent.
Consent is what transforms hegemony into leadership – and leadership in a system that other states consider preferable to alternatives. It is also what prevents the drive for balance from igniting.
And that is precisely what the Venezuela episode now puts at risk. It is not the operation against Nicolás Maduro itself, but rather the total disregard for the lawby the norms, alliances and diplomacy that mark this rupture in American foreign policy, says Zakaria.
In an interview with CNN, Stephen MillerWhite House deputy chief of staff, stated, bluntly, that “the US is governing Venezuela” and discarded the “international delicacies“, insisting that the world we live in is now governed “by force… by power, by “iron laws” of history.
President Donald Trump, for his part, said that the US would govern Venezuela until there was a “transition” – and would keep your oil. This was a naked act of aggression to benefit American coffers.
Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine to justify the operation. It is worth remembering that the Monroe Doctrine was often seen after 1823 as anti-imperialaimed at preventing European colonial-type interventions in the Western Hemisphere.
It was only later, especially with President Theodore Rooseveltin 1904, that the doctrine turned into a license for US intrusions throughout Latin America. This outbreak of American imperialism did not last long and it didn’t end well – neither for the region nor for America’s reputation.
If we are European, Canadian, South Korean or Mexican, Miller’s words will give you a shiver. Not because America is about to invade Ottawa or Berlin, but because the logic has changed.
The argument is no longer that American power is used in the service of broader principles that others might embrace – democracy, collective securitya rules-based order.
The argument is now that power confers rights: it governs because it canand. And it is exactly this type of behavior of a great hegemonic power that produces nervous neighbors.
The strategic capital built over decades by the US is now being wasted. And in the long run, an America that behaves like an entirely self-interested predator on the world stage will not become stronger; will become lonelier. Allies will protect each other. Partners will look for alternatives. Neutrals will gradually move away.
And the balance that history has always predicted may finally arrive – not because America has become weak, but because forgot the true source of his strength.
