In 2002, I was invited to the Columbia University podium to deliver an inaugural address at a press conference. That period coincided with only a few months having passed since the September 11 attacks, and it was still possible to feel how wounded the city felt. You could read that in the facial expressions of the officials from the city whom I spoke with.
In my speech, I talked about what the United States meant to me. I said, “I was born 15 years after World War II. The world established by the United Nations and the growing confidence and prosperity of the world I was born into was, in large part, due to the United States.”
American military power had been decisive in the Western theater of World War II. It had prevented further expansion of Soviet power. I spoke about the rapid changes in planning through which we built democratic societies presided over by the United States. I shared brief thoughts on the transformative impact of the Marshall Plan, which gave Europe a means to develop its devastated economy and supported the restoration of democratic institutions.
I spoke to a group of journalism students at their school. There was a young man who looked to be about 20. Tears were falling down his face as he tried to suppress them. He came up to me after the talk and said, “Forgive me for being emotional in the hall. Your words: that the world is in a moment of resilience yet feels raw and vulnerable. The United States needs to hear this from its foreign friends.”
A young man from Pakistan argued that the United States, the country where the modern “Roman Empire” was born, could demand whatever it wanted without deterrent. “If you reside, for instance, on the borders of the empire, you experience American power as something good. It protects you and your property, respects the law, and grants you legal authority. It is accountable to the people through democratic institutions. But if you live, for instance, on the outskirts of the empire, you experience American power as something entirely different. It can do anything to you, and you cannot prevent it or hold it accountable.”
I realized that these words pushed me to see the “rules-based international order” from another perspective—how it was not applied equally. Just as procedural trade rules are applied differently, we know that international law is applied based on the identity of the defendant or the victim.
A New System or a Return to the Past?
President Donald Trump visited New York recently, clearly committed to his interest in Greenland. He said he wanted ownership. He entered Denmark only to “add one more cycle” to protect the site. His expression shows utter disdain for many European leaders.
Trump recently said on Fox News regarding the war in Afghanistan that they sent “only some troops” but they “stayed a little behind the front lines.” This drew sharp criticism from British politicians, including those whose families served in the Afghanistan war. One official said of Trump: “It is an insult, shows ignorance, and expresses a profound disregard for reality.” After he spoke, the British Prime Minister called him, followed by the American President posting on his Truth Social platform to tell him: “American praise and prayer are among the greatest leaders.”
We realize from the U.S. policy strategy published in December that in his second term, the United States will put “Americanization First” at the heart of its national security strategy.
Return to Monroeism
A strategy that favors power: a return to a world in which great powers shape their allies around them. The danger in this is for what are called “lesser powers.” “If you are not at the table, you are on the menu,” as Mark Carney said in Davos.
In Davos, allies—especially Canada and Europe—expressed their concern for the survival of the so-called rules-based international order, with some mourning its demise. However, as Dr. Christopher Sabatini, a senior research fellow for European affairs at Chatham House, argues, there was no true rules-based international order in the years following World War II. “After World War II, we saw multiple U.S. interventions in Latin America.”
In 1953, there was the intervention against Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran to achieve demands over Iranian oil, accusing him of interfering in the global order. Documents show the U.S. and the Soviets intervened and supported the Shah with increasingly autocratic rule. At the same time, a Soviet threat was alleged in Guatemala regarding the land redistribution program affecting the United Fruit Company, which threatened its exploitation for its own benefit. Through CIA actions, the head of the army, Jacobo Árbenz, was replaced by a favorable dictatorship.
In 1983, the United States invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada, an island where Queen Elizabeth II was the monarch. In 1989, the U.S. invaded Panama and arrested the military leader Manuel Noriega, who spent almost the rest of his life in prison.
These interventions were always due to the “Monroe Doctrine” declared by President James Monroe in 1823, which claimed management of the independent Western world and asserted that European powers could not intervene. After World War II, this did not prevent the United States from applying this to other nations. The rules-based international order did not prevent the U.S. from conspiring to weaken its neighbors.
In 1954, the intervention in Guatemala was entirely under American control. In 1971, the U.S. could not influence Iran, and the Soviets arrested the monarchy. Dr. Jay Sabatini, author of the book “The Republic,” studied the history of Monroeism and concluded that Trump is “certainly a return to the past.”
Those born in the decades after World War II may be frightened by the return to the old system presented by Trump. They believed the rules-based order under American power was something new.
In 2004, I went to France to honor the 60th anniversary of the landings. There were still survivors from World War II and thousands of those who had crossed the seas to the shore 60 years ago, many from Europe. Many spoke of their war or their bravery in youth. I watched them wander individually or in small groups toward the cemeteries, away from the leadership they knew. I watched the heads of allied governments honor them. But I found myself thinking not as much of the battles they’d fought and the sacrifices they’d made, but of the peace they returned to once the fighting was over.
The world they left us was much better than the world they inherited from their fathers. They were born into a world of wars between great powers, where, as Carney said, “the strong do what they will, and the weak must suffer what they must.” This generation did not want a return to that old system.
Under the post-war system, “lesser powers” were promised support, alliance, and defense. They faced challenges and prosperity under American power, which was not necessarily always an alternative. They faced it with seriousness and a spirit of diplomacy and national security.
