America is entering the finish line of the 2020 presidential campaign, the topic of foreign policy is not much represented, so the fight between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden is about domestic political problems.
Be that as it may, historians will ask another question in the future: does Trump's mandate represent a turning point that changed the role of the US in the world, or is it just an unimportant historical accident? At this stage, the answer is uncertain because we do not know if Trump will be able to renew the mandate. In the book "Does morality matter", I published the rating of 14 US presidents, starting from 1945, where Trump, in the status of "term not completed", is currently among the 25 percent of presidents in the lower part of the table.
Presidents from the first quarter of that table, for example Franklin Roosevelt, realized that the policy of isolationism, which the USA pursued in the 1930s, was wrong, so after 1945 a liberal international order was established. The turning point was Harry Truman's post-war decisions, which led to the creation of strong alliances that still exist today.
America invested heavily in the Marshall Plan in 1948, created NATO in 1949, and led the United Nations coalition that fought in Korea in 1950. In 1960, under the leadership of Dwight Eisenhower, the USA signed a new security agreement with Japan.
In the following years, the Americans went through strong differences and divisions - between themselves and with other countries - regarding interventions in developing countries, partly in Vietnam and Iraq.
But the liberal institutional order still had broad support until the 2016 election, when Trump became the first candidate of the major party he began to criticize. He was also skeptical of foreign intervention: although he increased the defense budget, he used force relatively rarely.
Trump's anti-interventionism is somewhat popular, but his narrow, exclusively business definition of American interests, as well as his skepticism towards alliances and multilateral institutions, are not in line with the majority opinion. Since 1974, the Chicago Council on Global Policy has regularly asked the public: Should America play an active role or should it stand on the sidelines when it comes to world affairs. About a third of American society was isolationist, and the maximum level of 41% was reached in 2014. However, contrary to popular opinion, 64% of Americans support active participation in international affairs by the 2016 election, and that number rose to 70% during 2018.
The election of Trump and his populist appeal were explained by economic difficulties that intensified after the Great Recession of 2008, but even more by changes in culture, related to the racial issue, the role of women and gender equality, which polarized society.
Although Trump did not receive a majority of the popular vote in 2016, he successfully connected white resentment over the increasing visibility and influence of racial and ethnic minorities, on the one hand, and foreign policy, on the other: he laid the blame for economic insecurity and wage stagnation on poor trade conditions. agreements and immigration. However, President Trump, as his former adviser John Bolton says, does not have any special strategy, and his foreign policy is primarily determined by domestic political and personal interests.
The moment before Trump took office, Martin Wolf of The Financial Times called "the end of the economic period - globalization led by the West - as well as the geopolitical period, the 'moment of unipolarity', after the end of the Cold War, when the world order was led by the US." . If so, then Trump may become a turning point in American and world history, especially if he is re-elected. He appeals to voters by talking about domestic political issues, but his influence on world politics may turn out to be truly transformative.
Today's debates about Trump raise an old question: are important historical events the result of the decisions of political leaders, or are these events the result of socio-economic forces beyond anyone's control? Sometimes history looks like a swollen river, whose course depends on rainfall and topography, and the leaders of countries look like ants clinging to a floating trunk. However, in my opinion, they are more like athletes who navigate mountain rivers: they try to steer, avoid rocks, sometimes they capsize, and sometimes they successfully reach the desired point.
Roosevelt, for example, could not enter World War II until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but his moral definition of the threat posed by Hitler and his preparations to meet that threat were ultimately decisive. After World War II, the American reaction to Soviet ambitions could have been completely different if Truman, and not Herney Wallace (who was not already a candidate for Roosevelt's vice president in the 1944 elections), had become president. After the 1952 election, the administration of the isolationist Robert Taft or the mandate of the self-confident Douglas MacArthur could have interfered with the relatively smooth consolidation of Truman's containment strategy led by Eisenhower.
John F. Kennedy played a decisive role in preventing nuclear war during the Caribbean crisis and then signing the Nuclear Arms Control Treaty. Yet both he and Johnson led the country into the mire of the unnecessary fiasco of the Vietnam War. In the last decades of the century, economic forces caused the weakening of the USSR, and the actions of Mikhail Gorbachev accelerated the disintegration of the Soviet bloc. Nevertheless, Reagan's defense strengthening and diplomatic skills, as well as George Bush senior's ability to manage crises, played a significant role in the peaceful end of the Cold War, when a unified Germany joined NATO.
In other words, leaders and their skills matter a lot, which means that even Trump should not be written off lightly.
More important than his tweets is that he weakens institutions, alliances and America's soft power, which polls show has been declining since 2016.
Machiavellian and organizational skills are extremely important for successful US presidents, but no less important is emotional intelligence, which contributes to understanding one's own strengths and weaknesses, the context, and also increasing self-control. Trump has none of that. His successor - whether he appears in 2021 or 2025 - will face a changed world, and the causes of these changes are partly related to the characteristics of Trump's personality and politics. How big these changes will be depends on whether Trump will be president for one or two terms. After November 3, we will know where we are - at a historical turning point or at the end of a historical accident.
The author is a professor at Harvard
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2020.
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