Although it is the world’s major
power, the US has found it difficult to impose its will in the past decade or
so. From President Bush’s ‘mission accomplished’ speech about Iraq in 2003, to
the continuing disasters in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, from US
policy in Ukraine also being upset by Russian intervention in Crimea, to how
the Saudis and other Gulf states have destabilised the Middle East, the US has
not been getting its own way and has been unable to impose settlements that
would otherwise be expected of a hegemonic power. This puts the incoming US
administration under The Donald in an interesting position.
Early signs suggest that
POTUS-elect Trump is taking a softer line on Russia, one different from the
still Cold War-inspired position of the Obama regime. Trump has stated that he
expects the Europeans to pay more for their own NATO-related defence, which
might make them less willing to finance an increased build up of military
operations close to Russia’s borders. Trump has also rejected Obama’s rhetoric
on Putin’s supposed involvement in Russia’s alleged cyber attack on Clinton’s
emails. Perhaps most striking of all, Trump plans to appoint Rex Tillerson
as US Secretary of State, that is to be the main person in charge of foreign
policy. Tillerson is Chief Executive Officer of ExxonMobil, and is well known
to have friendly relationships with the Russian government.
ExxonMobil opposed sanctions on
Russia from its own business perspective, but one would have to agree that the
aggression shown to Russia by the current US administration makes little
economic or political sense. Russia is far from being a threat to US interests.
Instead, Russia may have prevented the unravelling of Syria that was the direction
of previous US policy, and which would have had a deleterious impact on the
stability of the Middle East, with knock on impacts into Europe. For this
reason, Trump’s likely Russian rapprochement makes sense, even if it will
embarrass the Europeans.
All this, and more, is still to
be determined, since the billionaire has yet to establish himself in the White
House. However, it seems that while there is very likely to be a US-Russia
rapprochement, the US political antagonism to China will continue under the
Trump administration.
Under Obama and previous US
presidents, Taiwan had remained in the limbo of being diplomatically isolated
(it has not been a member of the UN since 1971, under the ‘one China’ policy)
although politically and militarily supported by the US. But Trump took a call
from Taiwan’s president, much to China’s displeasure, which saw the incident as
an implicit recognition of Taiwan. This also makes sense from a US perspective.
China is both a political and an economic threat to US interests, one that has
been recognised in numerous US Congressional
reports. China’s economic power has seen it gain influence in Africa, Latin
America and Asia, often giving governments in these regions an alternative to
the US-dominated world financial and economic system.
More pointedly for the current
political climate, it is China, rather than Russia or anywhere else, which is
being singled out as the country that is being ‘unfair’ in trade and taking
American jobs. An anti-Chinese political stance makes far more sense for the US
on many more levels than the anti-EU stance does for the UK, since it not only
appeals to the latest domestic populism but also coincides with longer-term US
strategic interests.
Trump’s election is one more
sign of a shift in the tectonic plates of the imperial world economy. It will
impact not only US relationships with Russia and China, but also the position
of Europe, and even the acceptability of Russia outside Europe. Interestingly,
in the past day or so, Russian President Putin had a meeting in Japan with
Japan’s Prime Minister Abe on the Northern Territories/Kurile Islands, an area
of dispute between the two countries since the end of World War Two. No
resolution was made, and no peace treaty agreed on this, but there were 80
documents signed, including 68 on planned commercial deals between the two
countries.
Tony Norfield, 16 December 2016
2 comments:
Tony, do you have notes or a transcript of your recent speech in Berlin? Or, if you have time, could you summarise your key points in a blog post?
Having read your recent book, and learned about the increased importance of the City to the economic strategy of the British state since the 1980s, I would be interested in your view on how Brexit challenges that strategy.
Thanks
Michael
Michael,
I plan to write something on this in the coming week, as a separate blog post.
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