Opinion | The new American empire
By Tom Fowdy
America's inability to have shaped the world through the dreams of liberalism has given rise to a new, much more aggressive ideology that asserts it must do so by a return to expansionism.
We've all heard that phrase before, "The end of history." Famously coined by Francis Fukuyama, America's victory in the Cold War in 1991 ushered in a wave of optimism. Authoritarianism and conflict between states, so it went, was a thing of the past. "History" as we knew it, was therefore over, and the transition to liberal democracy was an inevitability. Relics of that bygone era, such as North Korea or Cuba, would surely collapse, while China, now being integrated into the global economic order, would transition to become like America by virtue of that influence.
This was the mindset of America's "unipolar" era, where the United States believed that it was comfortable in its manifest destiny to be the world's most powerful country and had an unlimited means to lead the world in that direction. Although there were challenges, in particular, "the war on terror" and the drastic military ventures of that era, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, all these efforts were inseparable from Washington's vision for the world, interpreting terrorism as patches of "evil ideology" to be cleaned up in these small, broken states which a dose of liberal-democracy could fix, with few exerting serious opposition to it at the time.
Yet history would take another direction. The globalization that the United States drove so religiously did not in fact create a world favorable to it, but instead empowered other states to become more powerful, who did not adhere to America's liberal democratic pantheon. The liberal democratic experiment in Russia faded out and instead became the revengeful ideology of Putinism, whereas China did not become the capitalist bonanza the US had bet and invested so heavily on, but reinforced its political system all while becoming militarily, technologically, and economically stronger. These unanticipated developments created the perception the global balance of power was shifting away from America and with it the perception the US was now the "net loser" of the open liberal order it fostered.
Of course, international affairs and geoeconomics are not as simple as the "zero-sum" game Trumpism has long depicted it to be, yet this is the message that caught on and from 2016 fundamentally changed the mindset of the United States. While the psychology of the average man and the Washington D.C. blob are nothing alike, officials have nonetheless sold the need for America to forcefully reassert its dominance as championing the interests of the working class and thus legitimizing an ever-expanding economic and technological war against China.
American foreign policy, once devoted to globalization, has become devoted to a doctrine of ripping it up on the premise that everything must exist in a zero-sum dynamic in subjugation to US interest, and if that means weakening, impoverishing, stagnating and even annexing allies, so be it. The Biden Administration has joyously destroyed the German economy, an acceptable price to pay for sustained Atlantic dominance.
But now are on the eve of the second Trump administration. Although there are legitimate questions about how serious rhetoric actually is in practice, the transitional period has been marked by an endless entourage of remarks calling for the annexation of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, the latter of which has been misleadingly scapegoated on China. Trump insists these arrangements would be for "national security" and clearly allude to reinforcing American dominance in the Western hemisphere completely. Yet, as much as it is rejected by the countries in question, the fact this is even discussed at all by the President of the United States should be enough to raise alarm bells. America is transforming from a liberalizing force to an expansionist force.
Of course, one should not forget that for most of its existence, right up until perhaps the 1950s, the United States of America has been an unapologetically expansionist country that over 170 years or so aggressively expanded from the East Atlantic Coast to the Pacific, and then deep into the ocean itself. America's expansion was ultimately capped by a change in global norms that ultimately rejected formal European colonialism, balanced by the existence of the Soviet Union. Yet now, under the auspices of Trump 2.0, the subsequent deterioration of the liberal order, and of course the brazen insecurity America feels "looking back" to the dominance it perceives it lost, we are seeking the sentiments of expansionism return, at least on the right. While the idea of America annexing Canada and such remains an absurdity, the message is nonetheless clear that within that geographic sphere, the "manifest destiny", these countries will only be allowed to operate on US terms and will be lock stepped into its dominance. The US will create a regional reserve for itself that it will lock China and Russia out of. Who can blame Justin Trudeau for wanting to quit now?
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | Elon Musk's corrosive adventurism into British politics
Opinion | Another year over, a new one just begun, looking back on 2024
Opinion | In memory of Jimmy Carter
Opinion | Why the Trump administration has its eyes on Panama
Comment