Why Putin and Trump want to humiliate Europe

There are those who argue that Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine is not motivated by fear or imperial ambitions, but by disrespect from other countries. Russia once had the authority of one of the world’s two superpowers, but that status has since been lost. It is aware that it has lost the respect of other countries (Barack Obama famously dismissed Russia as a “regional power”), and sees the war in Ukraine as a way to regain it.

What is perhaps surprising is that Donald Trump’s turn against Europe has similar motives. Putin knows that aggressive revanchism will not endear him to the countries whose respect he desires. But if he cannot be loved, he hopes at least to inspire awe. If you find yourself in a social order that considers you inferior, you have good reason to become a disruptive force.

Likewise, Trump wants to disrupt a social order that looks down on him and his worldview. The US president and his officials receive respect from dictators and kings (though perhaps not from those whose respect they value most - Putin and Xi Jinping), but they know that the leaders of many other democratic countries look down on them.

Now it is America that wants to act as a disruptor, breaking up the existing hierarchy of respect and replacing it with a world in which Trump will command unconditional obedience. Europe, with its emphasis on the rule of law and multilateralism, is the strongest remaining example of the entire system of prestige and values ​​that the Trump administration wants to destroy.

The irony is that it was the United States that built the world that Trump now intends to destroy. After World War II, Washington developed a new global ambition. Republicans and Democrats shared the belief that a world built on American values ​​would be better for America. They proclaimed that democracy and the rule of law were ideals by which nations should measure themselves.

Despite its obvious hypocrisy (for the United States itself often acted illiberally and undemocratically, preferring to judge others rather than allow itself to be judged), it was the cornerstone of America's "soft power" - the ability to indirectly influence the world through culture and values. Other countries looked to the United States as a model to follow.

After World War II, the United States helped rebuild the economies of Western Europe, encouraging the success of liberal parties and often covertly undermining those it considered too left or right.

Modern Europe was the greatest achievement of the old order. After World War II, the United States helped rebuild the economies of Western Europe, encouraging the success of liberal parties and often covertly undermining those it considered too left or right.

The European Union has its historical roots in an arrangement created to coordinate American aid distributed through the Marshall Plan. As it grew, it built a new order for Europe, based on cooperation among states, the importance of law, and liberal democracy. After the collapse of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, the EU expanded to include countries to the south and east, on the condition that they adopt democratic principles. In many ways, the EU, more than America itself, has adopted the values ​​of the liberal order created by the United States.

Now the Trump administration wants to dismantle the old order and replace it with a new one based on strength and national interest. Its new national security strategy states that it wants to “maintain the United States’ unrivaled ‘soft power’,” but that the way to do that is to recognize “America’s inherent greatness and decency.” Trump boasts in the strategy’s preface that, at last, “America is strong and respected again.”

The problem is that this is clearly not true. Countries that still hold liberal values ​​have no respect for Trump's America. They see it as an angry, inconsistent drunk with a bazooka: you say whatever you think might appease him, but you certainly don't respect him. America's "soft power" and indirect influence on other democracies is rapidly drying up.

This explains why Trump's national security strategy spends so much energy and nerves on attacks on Europe. And while the US ostentatiously renounces its ambition to change the world, it simultaneously signals that it wants to intervene in Europe and reshape it.

MAGA America wants to help European parties that suit it - but this time they are far-right parties. Instead of encouraging European cooperation, as the US did after World War II, the Trump administration now hopes to use discontent in the EU's newer members as a wedge against the Union's liberal-democratic values, turning Europe into a collection of sovereign states, strongly nationalistic and culturally "white".

In such a world, Europe would no longer be an obstacle to MAGA ideology. The challenge facing the Trump administration is that it simply does not have the capacity or global ambition to implement such a transformation.

Like Russia, this administration wants respect, but it doesn't have the power to do much more than act as a disruptor. It wants to shape Europe more strongly at a time when it also wants to withdraw from Europe, giving up its role as a guarantor of NATO.

Trump’s strategy denounces the “vast military, diplomatic, intelligence, and foreign assistance complex” that has been the backbone of US global ambitions, and does everything it can to empty and weaken it. But without that apparatus, America will not be able to reshape Europe to its own liking.

Of course, the Trump administration could resort to wildcat interventions to punish the European Union while simultaneously trying to help the far right rise to power. It is already denying visas to fact-checkers and social media moderators, accusing them of censoring right-wing views, and threatening the EU for its “arrogance” in regulating services like Platform X. But, as the example of Brazil — where attempts to punish officials and help Jair Bolsonaro have backfired — such measures can just as easily harm ideological allies as they can help them.

The Trump administration wants the benefits of respect and global “soft power,” which is why it is taking on Europe. But it also wants to retreat, reducing its global capabilities and transforming the United States into a regional power like Russia, which invests its strength in intimidating neighboring countries. It cannot have both.

Henry Farrell is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University. Sergey Radchenko is the Henry A. Kissinger Center Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

The text is taken from "The Guardian"

Translation: NB