Let’s hope this isn’t a Hemingway moment
The great novelist predicted the Second World War to within a few years, and simmering global tensions are worryingly similar to the age in which he wrote.
IN the summer of 1935, as international tensions in Europe and beyond began to simmer, Ernest Hemingway wrote: “Not this August, nor this September, but the year after that or the year after that, they fight.”
It took a few years longer than he thought, but he was right, and something alarmingly similar may be happening now. Tensions between the United States and North Korea might be grabbing the headlines, but that isn’t the only crisis that could spark a major war. And where the Trump administration should be engaged in tamping down hostilities, it is either escalating them or missing in action.
Almost everywhere you look, relations between countries — particularly potential adversaries — seem to be deteriorating, often alarmingly sharply. Washington, meanwhile, has rarely been more self-absorbed.
The trend has been a long time coming, predating Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House. The chaotic, idiosyncratic nature of the Trump administration, however — most particularly its unpredictability and isolationist, protectionist rhetoric – may well be worsening it.
Last week, as America obsessed over the aftermath of the Charlottesville protests and the ongoing machinations within the White House, Indian and Chinese troops were clashing high in the Himalayas. Exactly what happened in the remote patch of disputed territory between India, China and Bhutan remains unclear. Video footage shows soldiers grappling with each other with hooks and stones, but the confrontation has yet to be officially confirmed by either side. What does seem clear is that it was one of the most serious incidents between the two nuclear powers in decades.
In the Balkans, Serbia and Macedonia are engaged in a worsening diplomatic spat. Russia is on the brink of its largest military exercise in years, a sign of ever rising tension with NATO.
A handful of threads and constant themes draw these various crises together. A decade into the global financial crisis, leaders in almost every country are facing awkward economic and political realities and there is inevitably nationalist rhetoric to turn anger outward. The rise of emerging economies in recent decades has inevitably led to a geopolitical rebalancing, and countries are testing their newfound strengths.
Nowhere is that more visible than with China and Russia. The Russian economy might be barely the size of New York City, but Moscow discovered with the Georgia war nine years ago that its military prowess — now much modernized — still gave it clout in its own neighborhood. Beijing is making a similar discovery. It effectively forced Vietnam to back down in a dispute this month over offshore oil drilling, a development that will inevitably encourage Chinese hawks to push their luck still further.
This era was inevitably going to be a strategic nightmare for the US, one in which it would have to make tough choices about where to put resources and draw its red lines. The administration of Barack Obama struggled to find the right answers. Under Trump, however, the US faces an even tougher challenge when it comes to maintaining international legitimacy and confidence.
It would be wrong to accuse the current president of having no interest whatsoever in foreign matters. On North Korea, Afghanistan and other issues, the president and his national security team have clearly devoted a considerable degree of effort and focus. This presidency, however, is increasingly seen as having little or no grasp of the bigger picture.
A collection of interviews with six senior European officials – all of whom had been in top-level meetings with Trump – published by Buzzfeed this month shows a widespread lack of respect for the president. The officials described him as ignorant and unpredictable, and they were particularly concerned over his erratic use of Twitter.
If anything, such worries have been dramatically heightened by events of the past month, with Trump firing members of his administration and making polarizing statements about the white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. When the president responded to last week’s militant attack in Barcelona with a factually inaccurate reference expressing support for rumored US abuses against Muslims after the PhilippineAmerican War of 1899-1902, few were even surprised.
There remains widespread respect for many of those at the top of the administration, particularly the triumvirate of generals who control much foreign policy. But there are also real worries. Last week, the columnist Gideon Rachman described Trump’s America as a “dangerous nation,” and worried openly that the president might strike North Korea, initiating a war to distract from problems at home.
Shortly after, South Korea’s president Moon Jae In took the unusual step of stating that any military action on the Korean peninsula would first have to be approved by Seoul, as close as any major political leader has come to suggesting publicly that those concerns are much more widely shared.
It’s not too late to turn things around. Few countries are willing to risk outright conflict in an age when it could easily spark nuclear Armageddon. The events of this summer, however, show a world in which nations seem notably closer than before to turning to force. It’s a bad time for the US to look rudderless and poorly led, but that’s exactly what is happening.