The president understands that the liberal international order was possible only because of U.S. might, and Americans don’t want to pay the bill anymore.
Some editor ran this piece through a shredder. The main content is good, but the headline and intro are terrible.
Here are the highlights:
One reason this administration is so disorienting is that U.S. foreign policy has been guided for decades by the opposite of realism. The key fights in Washington, especially in recent decades, were between neocons who wanted to spread democracy through war and liberals who wanted to spread democracy through soft power like U.S.A.I.D. contracts to bolster civil society.
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While Mr. Trump embraces some elements of realism — giving in to the strong and sacrificing the weak — his tariff wars and threats against peaceful neighbors could end up being as costly as the military adventurism of the previous liberal order. Rajan Menon, a professor emeritus at the City College of New York, told me that people who expect the Trump administration “to follow the playbook of realism” by showing restraint “are going to get very disappointed.”
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To Mr. Trump, America is a great power that Russia wouldn’t dare attack, and Ukraine is a pawn that can be sacrificed. But here’s the thing about great powers: They all decline eventually. Neanderthal realism doesn’t save them. After Athens sacked Melos, word of its brutality spread. Its allies turned against it. Athens lost the war. Noble ideas, it turns out, do matter.
The main fallacy there is the idea that the west is a force for good in the world. The harsh reality is that liberal democracy being portrayed as the sole legitimate form of governance amounts to nothing more than modern-day marketing for colonialism, serving as a pretext for Western invasions and global atrocities masquerading as benevolent civilizing missions. This is precisely what the author laments under the guise of “noble ideas”.
… But the leaders of Melos were braver than me. They chose to fight. The result? The men were slaughtered, the women and children were enslaved, and the island was colonized. Were they heroes or fools? If you think of them as heroes, you are a liberal internationalist, who believes that peace and security depend on just governments that abide by enlightened rules. If you think they were fools, you’re a realist.
i used to think boudica was a great example of prevailing sentiments at how we see realism and idealism. in the past she was as regarded as a example of the price you pay for liberal idealism, like melos; but now she’s regarded as an inspiring story that typifies the idealism that drives our world today.
Some editor ran this piece through a shredder. The main content is good, but the headline and intro are terrible.
Here are the highlights:
The main fallacy there is the idea that the west is a force for good in the world. The harsh reality is that liberal democracy being portrayed as the sole legitimate form of governance amounts to nothing more than modern-day marketing for colonialism, serving as a pretext for Western invasions and global atrocities masquerading as benevolent civilizing missions. This is precisely what the author laments under the guise of “noble ideas”.
i used to think boudica was a great example of prevailing sentiments at how we see realism and idealism. in the past she was as regarded as a example of the price you pay for liberal idealism, like melos; but now she’s regarded as an inspiring story that typifies the idealism that drives our world today.