One year ago, on July 20, 2017, Donald Trump’s advisers held a secret meeting at the Pentagon, trying to convince Trump that rules-based international order is very beneficial for the United States. Among other things, the U.S. president’s subordinates explained the value of existing alliances, the need to keep American troops abroad, and the benefits of international law’s norms and institutions. However, after 50 minutes of presentations and arguments from James Mattis, Rex Tillerson and Garry Cohn, the three were unable to convince the U.S. president. On the contrary, Donald Trump allegedly stated that the world order created after 1945 does not work at all. And as the year has passed, it seems that the incumbent US president is staying true to this conviction.
Trump’s refusal to sign the final communiqué of this year’s G7 Summit in Canada is the best proof of it. The alleged opposition of the American delegation to the inclusion of a reference to rules-based international order in that final communiqué is very telling thing. It is legitimate to suppose that this US position is the result of Trump’s own rejection of the idea. Then, before the NATO summit at Brussels, Trump criticized the alliance numerous times, casting it as more favorable to Europe’s interests than to the U.S.’s. And this is despite the fact that NATO is one of the major pillars of current world order successfully upholding peace and security in Europe and North America.
At first, this opposition to the liberal/rules-based world order may sound a bit strange. Proponents of this kind of order argue that it’s qualitatively better and more progressive than previous world orders, which were based solely on the balance of power and interests. Moreover, they believe that the U.S.’s consent to restrict its own conduct in the international arena, adhering to rules instead of following the logic “might makes right,” enhances the world order’s legitimacy, and makes it a more attractive partner to the rest of the world. In essence, this world order was a source of American soft power, internationally. And the benefits of observing acceptable rules of the game in the field of security and economy could, hypothetically, even guarantee the preservation of a liberal international order as the US’s relative power declines. Or so its proponents believe. To some extent the incumbent US Secretary of Defense believes in those ideas, if you look at his statements and public pronouncements.
But it seems that where supporters of the liberal international order see its benefits for the United States, Donald Trump sees only flaws and losses. In the U.S. President’s view, rules-based international order puts Washington in a losing position from the very beginning. The restrictions imposed by the liberal international order do not allow the U.S. to fully utilize its leading world position in terms of strength, and achieve the results it desires. At the same time, countries such as Russia and China, which do not recognize the liberal international order and make every effort to destroy it, play rough ball without thought for the rules. This makes it possible for Moscow and Beijing to impose their will and build new realities in Ukraine, Syria or the littoral seas of East Asia. Neglecting the institutions and norms of liberal international order enables Russia and China to offset the power asymmetries still in the U.S.’s favor. The same thing is true with regards to numerous US treaty allies and partners. Previous American presidents see alliances in Europe and Asia as force multipliers and necessary instruments to uphold regional balances of power. But in Donald Trump’s view U.S. treaty allies and partners only unduly restrict Washington’s ability to act freely in world arena.
Similarly, it’s hard for Trump to believe in the utility for U.S. of the rules-based international order in the field of economics. And this is not only a consequence of the fact that the United States, as supporter and major promoter of free trade since 1945, eventually had a record trade deficit with the E.U., China and Japan. It’s also that the U.S. does not respect the intellectual property rights of American corporations, creates a variety of barriers to investment and imports to its market, and conducts banned large-scale subsidy programs in promising sectors of its economy. In such circumstances, the arguments for the liberal international order’s success look like more like anecdotes. So, in the end, in Donald Trump’s view the US is kind of chained giant, unduly restricted by this world order.
Therefore, the U.S. president’s fondness for the world’s autocrats is not a consequence of a desire to negotiate grand bargains with them. In essence, it is a kind of envy. States like Russia or China in their foreign policy are not limited by norms, institutions and allies to the same extent as the United States. And Trump sees that rules-based international order has essentially become a means of deterring and unduly restricting the power of the United States, rather than a good framework for countering Moscow or Beijing. The American president is only trying to remedy the situation and create the same conditions of play for Washington as for Moscow and Beijing. It is not surprising that Donald Trump chose John Bolton as his new national security adviser. This former State Department employee is known for his rejection of the whole post-war architecture of norms and institutions. In Bolton’s view, these things only unjustifiably restrict the United States. This is more in line with the ideas of Donald Trump than the corresponding vision of Herbert McMaster. And these views prevail among Republicans in general. Members of GOP has always looked with considerable skepticism the collection of rules and institutions restricting US freedom of conduct on international arena.
It’s an open question how successful Trump’s foreign policy approach will be. On the one hand, there’s the balance of threats theory. This concept argues that states facing attempts of external pressure in most cases choose to fight and resist, not surrender. Therefore, it’s possible that the Donald Trump’s course will mean high costs without the desired results. But on the other hand, it is possible that supporters of the liberal international order are wrong in the end. And such an order cannot outlive the reduction of the U.S.’s relative strength and that of its allies, which is the foundation of this order. Under such conditions, and considering that Russia and China don’t play according to the rules, returning to the principle of “might makes right” does not seem to be an illogical step in the end.
