As the economic turmoil continues to spread, the idea that one can win as a leftist may again become legitimate. It’s a bit equivalent to what might have happened had Bernie Sanders won the Democratic primary in the United States.
President Donald Trump has made it clear that his presidency will have a position on everything everywhere. He has also made it clear that he alone will make the final decision on the policy his government will follow. He has chosen two priority areas in implementing his policies: Mexico and Syria/Iraq, which is the zone of strength for the caliphate of the Islamic State.
Most politicians, journalists, and academic analysts describe the relations of China and the United States as one of hostile competition, especially in East Asia. I disagree. I believe that the top of both countries’ geopolitical agenda is reaching long-term accord with the other. The major bone of contention is which of the two prospective partners will be the top dog.
Trump seems to think that there are only two countries other than the United States that matter in the world today – Russia and China. As both Robert Gates and Henry Kissinger have pointed out, he is using the Nixon technique in reverse.
Every country has mixed feelings about its future, but some are more self-confident than others. At the present moment, there are very few countries in which self-doubt does not seem greater than self-confidence. This seems to me true of the United States, both western and eastern Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and most of Africa and Latin America. The biggest exception to this global worry and pessimism is China.
Trump used the campaign slogan “make America great again.” The problem is very simple. Neither he nor any other president – be it Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or for that matter Ronald Reagan – can do very much about the advanced decline of the erstwhile hegemonic power.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019