BY DANIEL FRIED
On Nov 11, 1918, World War One, the Great War, ended. Amid the chaos that followed—revolution, the autumn of empires, together with rising of nations—the U.S. of A. of America attempted to construct a rules-based earth which favored freedom. American ability had won the war, together with President Woodrow Wilson was trying to form a peace along the lines of what nosotros forthwith telephone telephone a rules-based or “liberal” earth order. Wilson’s Fourteen Points, presented the previous January, challenged the imperial, balance-of-power organisation of the European powers (on both sides) which had started the war, together with at the same fourth dimension took on Lenin’s revolutionary alternative. Wilson’s ideas were a crude oil draft of American Grand Strategy inward what has been called the American Century.
The Fourteen Points included liberty of navigation together with “equality of merchandise conditions” (instead of unopen economical empires); qualification of (though non yet an halt to) colonialism; welcomed post-war Deutschland together with post-revolutionary Russian Federation into the novel organisation if, but exclusively if, they respected its rules; welcomed the emergence or re-emergence of national states inward Central together with Eastern Europe, such equally Poland; together with called for a League of Nations to enforce the peace.
The Fourteen Points were non abstract “idealism” or charity, but reflected canny assumptions, that:
Yankee ingenuity would flourish best inward a rules-based, opened upwards earth without unopen economical empires;
The United States’ interests would advance amongst republic together with the dominion of law;
The U.S. of A. of America would prosper when other nations did equally well, together with thus;
The U.S. of A. of America could brand the earth a improve house together with acquire rich inward the process.
Historians convey non been variety to Wilson or the Fourteen Points. They convey fairly noted the inconsistencies, hypocrisies, together with nasty unintended consequences of Wilson’s outline of US global leadership. Self-determination is easier stated equally regulation than seat into practice. Wilson’s racial bigotry, awful fifty-fifty for his time, is a difficult score against him.
And yet. Consider the Fourteen Points against its competition: Lenin’s earth socialist revolution or French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau’s bully ability system. Given that, Wilson’s vision of a rules-based, liberal earth order, aka the Free World, stands upwards good 100 years later.
In Wilson’s view, the United States’ interests together with its values are indivisible. Arguably, US unusual policy always since has been a fighting betwixt this bold thesis—shared yesteryear Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, together with Ronald Reagan—and the traditional stance that nations convey neither permanent friends, simply interests, together with that the demands of remainder of ability together with realism trump values.
The narrow stance of US purposes inward the world—usually called isolationism—was responsible for US withdrawal from European together with earth leadership, which left the champaign opened upwards for dictators together with roughly other earth war. In the wake of that disaster, the U.S. of A. of America returned to its Grand Strategy. After 1945, the U.S. of A. of America seat it to operate inward the role of Europe all the same gratuitous to rebuild together with strengthen the Western democracies. After 1989, the U.S. of A. of America extended the institutions of the Free World throughout Europe. Since the halt of World War II, the West together with much of the earth convey enjoyed the longest menstruum of bully ability peace inward history, amongst unprecedented prosperity together with democracy.
But if things convey gone so well, why do things seem so bad? The West faces aggression from Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation together with challenges from China. More alarming are doubts together with divisions from within, including the West’s questioning of its ain model together with values.
These challenges convey been years inward the making. Economic stresses are i source. Another is line of piece of job organisation virtually national identity inward a fourth dimension of increasing ethnic diversity, which has generated nativist reactions.
Policy responses from mainstream political parties on both sides of the Atlantic seem inadequate, at to the lowest degree judging yesteryear electoral blowback, together with a perceived failure of political systems is generating reaction against what many thought were settled fundamentals.
In the United States, this reaction includes elements both familiar together with ugly. US President Donald J. Trump’s skepticism virtually Europe recalls before America First arguments from before the assail on Pearl Harbor inward 1941. Some politicians’ linguistic communication against immigration, legal equally good equally illegal, parallels nativist, fifty-fifty racist arguments from the 1920s. Praise for Putin together with other authoritarians retrieve early on right-wing sympathy for Benito Mussolini. Trump sometimes seems to dismiss values equally bunk, inward favor of the bottom line, roughly other American tradition. The fighting betwixt wide together with narrow US strategic concepts remains amongst us.
The United States’ electrical flow political debates convey their parallel throughout Europe.
What should guide the U.S. of A. of America equally it begins the side yesteryear side hundred years of its Grand Strategy?
US leadership is essential. The choice isn’t pretty, equally nosotros discovered the terminal fourth dimension nosotros tried to take away from our responsibilities.
Leadership to what end? Security? Commercial advantage? Certainly. But how do Americans accomplish those valid ends? What is the deeper US national interest? What does it hateful to defend, equally Trump urges, American sovereignty?
The West together with the earth are composed of sovereign nations. Patriotism is a proficient thing. That thought was integral to the Fourteen Points. But sovereignty together with the acre are non absolute. They are qualified yesteryear responsibleness before higher values. The Declaration of Independence makes that clear. Values are no luxury or artifice. As Abraham Lincoln observed, the American acre exists through mutual values rather than mutual blood. Thus, nosotros support, inward our improve moments, a rules-based international social club reflecting these mutual values. The alternative—indifference to values together with deference to power—was tried together with works life wanting. Happily, nosotros also learned that a rules-based earth tin operate for our bottom line. The foundation of the American Grand Strategy remains valid.
This is non to minimize the challenges, whether from rejectionist powers similar Russian Federation or from an ambitious together with potentially aggressive Cathay or other authoritarian powers, or from economical stresses, environmental degradation, climate change, together with a host of other problems. The correct strategic principles won't spare us from bad decisions (the Vietnam or Republic of Iraq Wars come upwards to mind), nor are they protection against over-extension.
The principles of a rules-based social club do non laissez passer on us answers to these together with other problems. But they are a house to start.
The U.S. of A. of America should construct on what nosotros convey achieved inward the hundred years since the starting fourth dimension draft of our Grand Strategy, working amongst those friends amongst whom nosotros achieved it. With our allies, nosotros convey the ability all the same to tackle challenges both acuate together with long term, recalling the linkage betwixt our interests together with our values. As the proverb used to go, that's the American way.
Daniel Fried is a distinguished beau inward the Atlantic Council’s Future Europe Initiative together with Eurasia Center. He played a key role inward designing together with implementing US policy inward Europe after the autumn of the Soviet Union. As particular assistant together with National Security Council senior manager for Presidents Clinton together with Bush, ambassador to Poland, together with assistant secretarial assistant of state for Europe, Fried crafted the policy of NATO enlargement to Central European nations and, inward parallel, NATO-Russia relations, thence advancing the finish of Europe whole, free, together with at peace.
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