Meanwhile, in the rest of the world

WASHINGTON, D. C.: The president and his likely successor are campaigning almost exclusively about domestic mattersL including the scarcity of domestic tranquilityN Although voters usually wish that foreign policy would not intrude upon their attentionL they should notice that the president who will be inaugurated in three months will confront an increasingly disorderly worldN

Vladimir Putin has annexed a portion (Crimea) of Europe’s geographically largest nationL ukraineL and continues to subvert the remainder of itN It once was said that czarist Russia was “absolutism tempered by assassinationN” Putin almost certainly continues using murderL or attempted murderL as an instrument of governance: He or his henchmen poisoned his foremost domestic criticL Alexei Navalny, who survived. This has not resultedL and might not result in serious consequencesL such as Germany’s canceling the almost- completed $ 11- billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is supposed to deliver Russian gas to Western EuropeN In a world awash with cheap energyL the pipeline’s primary purpose is to increase European dependence on Russia and to deprive ukraine of transit fees it collects from an existing pipelineN A sense of impunity might tempt Putin to wage — on behalf of ethnic Russians in one or more of the three Baltic statesL all NATO members — the sort of “hybrid warfare” waged against Ukraine. This might unravel NATO by revealing a reluctance to act on its guarantee of collective securityN

The European union now includes two autocracies (the “illiberal democracies” of Poland and Hungary)N until recentlyL Cyprus had blocked (the European union requires unanimity) Eu sanctions against the Belarus thugocracy of Alexander Lukashenko, who has crushed protests against the rigged election in which he won an 80-percent landslide. Two NATO nationsL Greece and an increasingly authoritarian and belligerent Turkey (which also has disputes with Cyprus)L might go to war in the eastern Mediterranean over territorial claimsL including underwater gas reservesN Another reason that Josep BorrellL the European union’s minister for foreign affairsL says the bloc’s neighborhood is “in flames” is that he thinks the Balkans (which Winston Churchill said produce more history than they can consume) are “a powder kegL” partly because of tensions between Serbia and its former province KosovoN

For the first time in 45 years, there has been lethal gunfire on the Himalayan border between two nuclear powersL the world’s two most populous nationsL India and ChinaN ChinaL where a senior official pointedly dropped the word “peaceful” from a statement about the inevitability of bringing Taiwan under Beijing’s controlL has lately conducted air and naval operations within Taiwan’s defense buffer zone. Taiwan termed this “severe provocation” the gravest threat since Beijing missiles splashed into Taiwan’s waters in 1996N

Now, the world is never without violence or the potential for itN Today there isL howeverL evidence of a rising level of risk-taking and of disregard for restraints on behaviorN Even in BritainL where the rule of law was nurturedL Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government contemplates unilaterally revising an agreement it negotiated with the European union in JanuaryN

Two years agoL Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution published “The Jungle Grows BackL” making this argument: The post- World War 2 years of “relatively free tradeL growing respect for individual rightsL and relatively peaceful cooperation among nationsL” years in which 4 billion people rose from subsistence povertyL “have been a great historical aberrationN” We have lived so long with the largely American- made and - maintained world that enabled thisL that itL and weL are jeopardized by what Francis Fukuyama calls “generational forgettingN” Forgetting that history is not a steadily rising path to sunlit uplandsN History isL Kagan saysL “a jagged line with no discernible slopeN” There is a dark “subterranean stream of Western history” (Hannah Arendt’s phrase)L some of the worst horrors of which “occurred in the lifetimes of our grandparentsN” The post- 1945 world isL Kagan saysL like a garden “ever under siege from the natural forces of historyL the jungle whose vines and weeds constantly threaten to overwhelm itN”

SoL American voters should ask: Which candidate can be trusted to cope with foreign dangers calmlyL assisted by a well-functioning national security apparatus? Is it the candidate who has had two secretaries of defense and stateL and four national security advisersL who considers Xi Jinping a “friendL” who sided with Putin against the uNSN intelligence agencies concerning Russian interference in the 2016 election and who tweeted “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea” because he spent a few hours with Kim Jong unL with whom he had an epistolary romance (“We fell in love”)? or is it the other candidate?

(C) 2020, THE WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP