An incredible shrinking superpower

In 1957 a movie came out called The Incredible Shrinking Man. The protagonist, Scott Carey, after being engulfed by a weird radioactive cloud, begins to diminish in size until he ultimately disappears. Many have cited this film (which was pretty good, and certainly ahead of its time in the special effects department) as a cautionary tale about the dangers posed by atomic power, and it was that; but it also serves as an effective metaphor for the decline in international status by the United States in the age of Trump.

In 1945 at the Yalta Conference, the United States began the process of asserting its hegemony globally. President Roosevelt’s cousin Theodore had already established this for the Western hemisphere with his Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine of 1904 that claimed the U.S. right to police the Americas. Following that, William Howard Taft’s aggressive “dollar diplomacy” in Latin America and Woodrow Wilson’s invasion of Mexico in 1914 left little doubt as to who was the hemispheric boss.

At Yalta, FDR agreed that the United States would be a member of the new United Nations, and he certainly never suggested that world opinion didn’t matter. But over the next several years the success of the Marshall Plan, the effective defense of Greece and Turkey against Soviet aggression, the saving of South Korea from a communist takeover, and the defeat of the Berlin Blockade clearly demonstrated that the phrase “leader of the free world” as it applied to the U.S. was much more than hyperbole.

The Vietnam debacle of the 1960s and ’70s damaged the country’s international status, as did the concerted opposition of many U.S. leaders to long-overdue reforms in the field of racial justice. Watergate was another national embarrassment, as was the Iran-Contra scandal. But the collapse of the Soviet Union and the unparalleled economic recovery of the 1990s (after years of economic malpractice under both Republican and Democratic administrations) undid much of that damage.

And while Presidents Clinton and Obama can certainly be criticized for aspects of their foreign policy, no objective evaluation would conclude that either seriously harmed U.S. prestige or efficacy on the world stage. Even George W. Bush’s Iraq War (a clearly unnecessary and horribly destructive conflict whose proponents’ motives are still hotly debated) did not markedly alter the perception of the United States as leader of the free world and champion of democracy.

Then came Donald Trump. If Trump has a purpose in his foreign policy, and it is not clear that he does, the most logical conclusion is that he hopes to disrupt all of America’s economic and military alliances and create a new amoral world order where decisions are based purely on expediency, an American version of German warmonger Otto von Bismarck’s Realpolitik. The evidence seems indisputable.

By withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, Trump sacrificed the right of the United States to participate in the vital task of helping control greenhouse gas emissions on a global level. Other nations have now taken on that leadership role.

By withdrawing from the TransPacific Partnership, Trump essentially gave up U.S. influence in the Pacific and, by default, awarded China the hegemonic role.

Trump’s attacks on NAFTA and his reckless tariff policies endanger key alliances and cost Americans jobs and money. No one would argue against the U.S. seeking to improve its international trade posture, but this is clearly not an effective, or even sane, way to go about it.

At the same time Trump casts doubt on the U.S. commitment to the NATO alliance and refers to the European Union as a foe, he lavishes praise on the most ruthless dictators of our time.

He says that Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte is doing a “great job” by carrying out a drug war that has claimed the lives of thousands in defiance of all international standards of policing and jurisprudence.

He says that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un cares deeply about his people and, in the interest of world peace and economic improvement, is willing to give up the development of nuclear weapons.

And, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary provided by his own intelligence agencies, Trump asserts that Russian “President” Vladimir Putin may well be innocent, as Putin asserts, of tampering in American elections, that there might be justification for his takeover of Crimea, and that he is deserving of a summit meeting at the White House.

The net result of Trump’s foreign “policy” is that the United States is rapidly losing its long-held status as world leader and chief defender of freedom. When Trump made an early exit from the recent G-7 summit, the consensus of the remaining attendees was that they were glad he was gone.

When Trump rejected the agreement that restrains Iran from further development of nuclear weapons, the Europeans stepped up to keep it going. When Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, some American states, cities, and business said defiantly that they would nevertheless continue to follow the established guidelines.

Perhaps the most cogent comment on Trump’s withdrawal from world affairs and his contempt for democratic norms was that made by French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy in a recent CNN appearance. Lévy compared the United States to a “shining city on a hill,” whose radiance is “switching off like a light going out.”

Dr. Gary Battershell, a history instructor, is retired from an Arkansas school in the University of Arkansas system.