The New New World Order

In his latest column in the Washington Post David Ignatius worries that the changes in foreign police effected by the incoming administration will be for the worse:

In a study titled “Strategic Choices for a Turbulent World,” Rand described a global tipping point: “The post-Cold War period is over. While historians may argue about the timing, it has become clear to most foreign-policy practitioners that the world has entered a new era, a complex age of turbulence and opportunity.”

A “Come Home America” strategy similar to what Trump proposes would narrow U.S. goals and influence “in exchange for limiting U.S. exposure to a more unstable world,” the Rand report argued. Russia and China would seek to benefit, and although Russia has long-term economic troubles, “declining powers can sometimes be the most dangerous.”

Trump has a big vision of deals with Russia, China and Europe that could redraw the terms of trade and rebalance an unstable world, to America’s benefit. And he’s the leader, now, of a worldwide movement against a globalization that disproportionately benefited elites in the United States and Europe. But as Lew says, this “anti-expert, anti-elite mood . . . doesn’t change classical economics.”

and I think that those are reasonable concerns. Defending the status quo is a mug’s game; change is the only thing of which we can be assured. Would taking David Ignatius’s advice improve things? If any president would, we’d have significant numbers of troops mired in conflicts in a half dozen more countries than we’re fighting in now.

How is NATO not obsolete? What is its role today? We’re already in a trade war with China—we’re just not shooting back. What should trade policy be, other than tolerating other countries using a one-two punch of currency manipulation and government subsidies to siphon whole industries away from the United States?

I can’t tell you what Trump will do. I don’t think that anyone including Trump does, not the least because he thinks transactionally rather than strategically or even tactically.

I can tell you what I would do. Limit our use of force to the American interest and when there is no other recourse; have a policy of trade reciprocity, at least in the near term; stop expanding NATO and ensure that our NATO allies live up to their side of the bargain. Will Trump do any of those things? I doubt it. Who knows? It’s a brave, new world.