It is clear that today’s geopolitical landscape is dominated by the rivalry between the US and China. In President Xi Jinping, President Donald Trump has an adversary who wants to supplant American influence in Asia and across the globe. This new geopolitical reality has grave implications for Europe and the free world.
Are we witnessing the end of the ‘American Century’? The coronavirus crisis has exposed how far the US is retreating from its leadership of the Western world. Everyone alive today has lived entirely under the benign domination of the US.
The American Century was defined by the decision of president Truman in 1945 to come to the aid of Europe financially and to make its security a priority. It was an era marked by the great prosperity of Western capitalism and by the nuclear stand-off with the Soviet Union that preceded communism’s intellectual and political collapse.
Now it’s time to wonder: is this era over? Does the coronavirus catastrophe mark the end of Pax Americana?
Since Truman earned the title, the American president has been ‘the leader of the free world’. Yet being the leader of the free world is not an office. It’s a role. Truman created it by his actions. And his successors accepted the responsibilities. Always, they accepted the American post-war duty, a self-imposed duty, to show a way forward, to rally liberal democracies, to support the actions of the free nations.
America dominated the post-war era because it came out of World War II stronger than any other nation. It was richer, more powerful, more confident of itself. Without that self-assurance and wealth there would have been no Pax Americana.
But Pax Americana was the result of more than the international leadership of presidents. It was also about the example of America. A land of opportunity, mobility and prosperity. A great constitutional democracy that protected free speech and liberty of the citizen.
In short, America showed leadership. Until now.
If the US deserts the commanding heights of power, something worse will inhabit them, specifically an invigorated China- Martin Scicluna
COVID-19 is the ultimate international crisis. But an extraordinary feature of the emergency has been how national the response has been. We are facing something that is a menace to the health of everyone, in rich countries and poor, one that threatens to crash the global economy, destroying years, even decades of economic progress. But where is the international leadership to combat it?
This should have been the moment for a leader of the free world. Yet there is no leader of the free world. Trump has been incapable of even leading adequately the US response, let alone guiding or inspiring international institutions. In any case, he has shown no interest in doing so.
And if he were to have such an interest, who would follow him as he flails and lashes around in his uniquely incoherent way? This is not behaviour becoming of the man who currently leads the most powerful nation on earth.
President Trump is merely the embodiment of an American attitude that has been growing for some time.
The reluctance of America to shoulder its leadership responsibilities, and its indifference to some of the institutions it helped to create – the whole alphabet soup of UN, WHO, NATO, IMF, World Bank, WTO – reflects its dejected state. Those institutions, including the EU, were formed to unite a democratic world and end the threat of internecine European warfare.
Today, this model seems deeply frayed. Coronavirus has shone a light on another America. One where the federal government is too weak or too unwilling to act. There is a distinct chance that at the end of the coronavirus crisis, America will be among the nations worst hit, and will struggle to overcome the damage to its health and to its economy.
Will it be in a position to lead the free world? If America has lost the capacity and will to lead, nobody else is ready to do so. Western Europe is still financially and militarily dependent on the US for its defence and security. The EU looks increasingly at risk of fragmentation. If anything, the coronavirus crisis has deepened splits in the world order.
Of the many changes wrought by the pandemic crisis the further retreat of the US from the world stage may prove the most momentous.
The failure of President Trump to take a lead, both within America and without, raises the worrying prospect of a world in which China is the dominant power.
Even worse than an absence of leadership at home, his rejection of global leadership is dangerous.
If the US deserts the commanding heights of power, something worse will inhabit them, specifically an invigorated China. China’s economic power is likely to grow as countries need help to recover from the impoverishing effects of COVID-19. The prospect of China fulfilling Xi Jinping’s goal to be the world’s most powerful economy by 2049 has come closer.
Like World War II, the coronavirus crisis marks a significant moment in history and shines a searchlight on shifting geopolitical currents. But at the moment America is leaderless and is drifting, at home and abroad, leaving us all less safe. A unified Western response is a vital counterweight to Chinese dominance. The European Union and the rest of the free world are far from providing one.
In the last two decades, there has been a lot to criticise about American diplomatic hegemony. But it will be sorely missed when it is gone.