Trump’s foreign policy must look beyond old Cold War

The impact President Trump’s election will have on American foreign policy is still up for discussion, but for all practical purposes, Washington will have to come to terms with a new global environment—an environment still held hostage, in part, by the defunct Cold War.

The Cold War was essentially a bipolar confrontation pitting the Soviet Union against the United States and its allies. On the margins of the confrontation stood what went under the name of the “Third World,” a motley aggregate of mostly mismanaged former colonies,  absurd dictatorships and failed economies. Within this ecosystem, and excluding India, China stood out as massive but isolated and essentially focused on its internal concerns.

One of the defining features of this global archetype was that the Russian Empire, in its then-current incarnation, the Soviet Union, was one single land mass extending from the Kamchatka peninsula to the Elbe River.

This made it easier for Moscow to keep its dependents in line. Thus, when the Hungarians or the Czechs sought to regain their independence, it required no logistical feat for Moscow to send troops to quell the uprising.

Contrary to the Soviet Union and its Russian successor, the American Empire was a global endeavor with far-flung concerns. Both foreign bases and a major fleet were needed to ensure America’s dominance.

By the 1960s, an equilibrium of some sort had been reached between the two dominant powers, and both sides implicitly acknowledged that each had a sphere of interest that should be respected.

Thus, Washington refrained from intervening when the likes of Hungary or Czechoslovakia sought to break away from the Soviet masters. Conversely, Washington did intervene, albeit through local proxies when Moscow tried to reach beyond its sphere of interest, such as in Afghanistan.

Ultimately, while the prevailing equilibrium was fraught with malevolence, it was an order of some sort with its unspoken rules and red lines, real or imagined. While the collapse of the Soviet Union was tantamount to Russia’s loss of empire, the geopolitical setting of the two powers in relation to each other did not change.

Russia remained Russia as a continental power, albeit one that had been amputated from part of its land mass. The United States remained a global player with a far-flung empire and an impact that extended far beyond the military or the economic sphere.

However, while America’s military and economic might had no peers. managing this superiority proved – to say the least – problematic, and translating it into substantive accomplishments was even more so.

During the first decades of the post-Cold War environment, Russia was on its knees, China had not yet emerged as an industrial power and existing regional tensions in such places as the Middle East and Taiwan were essentially contained. But history does not stand still; it was an order that did not last.

Today, some 35 years after the end of the Cold War, a fragmented world has seen the emergence of a multiplicity of contestants. And while none is strong enough to realistically challenge the United States, collectively they make it increasingly difficult for Washington to impose its hegemony.

Managing the Cold War was relatively easy for Washington. The Soviet system was such an aberration that all the United States had to do was endure until the USSR self-destructed. That era is now over. And what has emerged from the post-Cold War era is a new divide that is hostage both to the ghosts of the past and to the challenges of an uncertain future.

Russia, China, the Middle East, militant Islam and BRICS are the new challenges confronting Washington’s hegemony. While each has its own dynamics, not to mention agendas, put together they correspond to a new divide. And if this divide had to have two bookends, those would be Russia and China.

Russia, as it is perceived by the United States, is a fabrication, the figment of an imagination that still harks to the days of the Cold War. Indeed, if one looks dispassionately at the metrics, the image they project is undisputable.

In terms of population, birthrate, GDP, innovation, industrial production and armed forces, Russia is barely on the map and the unanswered question is: By what subterfuge did President Vladimir Putin bluff the mind of the world into passing off his country (setting aside its nuclear potential) as an international heavyweight.

The end result is that Washington is sustaining a war in Ukraine as if the outcome would change the balance of power in Europe – while Russia, as a last resort, is resigning itself to having to purchase drones from the likes of Iran.

China, the opposite bookmark, has been an American fixation since the birth of the People’s Republic in 1949. For the first 20 years of its existence, the regime was subject to an embargo that had no parallel.

That was followed starting from the mid-1970s by the normalization of US-China relations based on two misconstructions: for the United States, that this would lead to “regime change” in China and, for the leaders in Beijing, that China could become part of the international system without submitting to some extent to its rules.

Actually, neither side came to terms with the fact that the two regimens were basically incompatible and that they needed to agree on a new set of rules before interplay could start. The result is an uneasy relationship in which the American empire seeks to “contain” China while the Chinese empire seeks to assert itself as a global player.

The fact that the economies of the two are partly interwoven is a complicating factor, as restrictive measures taken by one relative to the other can easily become self-defeating exercises.

While America’s ongoing confrontation with both Russia and China has its own dynamics, it has complicated Washington’s projection of power in the Middle East. There, the United States is not only entangled in the Palestinian issue but also has to confront militant Islam as embodied by a reincarnation of the Persian Empire under the name of Iran.

In practical terms, this means that Washington will have to embark on a path that requires two mutually supportive preferences. The first is to prioritize and the second is to lead not so much from the front but from the center.

It should be obvious that Ukraine is not vital to the security of either the United States or even Europe given the sorry state of the Russian armed forces. Thus, a truncated Ukraine that is not a member of NATO is likely to be a less bad solution than the current war. And such an outcome might also induce the core European countries to take their defense more seriously and make it less dependent on the United States.

Within this political ecosystem fragmentation has encouraged short-term tactical alliances. Thus, while both China and Russia are wary of militant Islam, one is a major importer of Iranian oil and the other of Iranian drones.

Over the next hundred years or more, China will be the real challenge. The issue here goes far beyond quotas, tariffs or embargoes. It relates to how two basically incompatible social and production systems, the Western and the Imperial Chinese, can not only coexist but operate in tandem to their mutual benefit.

An American pullback might well motivate Ukraine and Russia to reach some sort of compromise. Granted, President Putin might refuse to consider two factors: that Russia simply does not have the means to absorb Ukraine and that Ukrainian nationalism is here to stay. But at least the issue will be reduced to a convulsion of the Russian-Slavic ecosystem and not to a global crisis.

How the Trump administration will come to terms with the new international environment is still a question mark. But we can hope Washington will realize that the time has passed for going it alone or for business as usual.

Alexander Casella, PhD, has taught and he has worked as a journalist for Le Monde, The Times, The New York Times, Die Zeit, The Guardian and Swiss radio and TV, writing primarily on China and Vietnam. In 1973 he joined the UNHCR, serving, among other postings, as head of the East Asia Section and director for Asia and Oceania. He then served as representative in Geneva of the International Center for Migration Policy Development.