17 January 2018
Trump and the dissolution of empire
By: Karsten Riise
History doesn’t repeat itself,
but it often rhymes.
The USA is on way to a dissolution of its global empire. This has parallels to the Soviet Union's dissolution before and after 1989. Barack Obama was an "American Gorbatchev". Obama came to power with a non-effective slogan of "change". Just like Gorbatchev’s similar slogan of "perestroika" (restructuring), Obama wanted to revive an ossified world-system by adjusting it. And just like Gorbatchev, Obama was eventually caught-up himself by the ossified system. The system was so rigid, that instead of the change itself, similarly to Gorbatchev, Obama inadvertently enabled a precursor for fundamental change - namely dissolution.
Like president Trump may seem a more “coarse” personality compared to his more polished predecessor Obama, Yeltsin was also a more “coarse” and direct personality compared to Gorbatchev. As Trump, Yeltsin was harsh in his words and ways, and really prepared to confront and break-down serious stuff.
Yeltsin decided to actively dissolve the whole political system, put “Russia first” and withdraw Russia as center of a costly Soviet empire. Apart from three tiny Baltic members-states of the Soviet Union, dissolving the Soviet Union, was actually not something which all the rest of the ailing Soviet Union was actually very enthusiastic about at the time. The Soviet dissolution came so decidedly about, because Yeltsin and the many Russians who supported him had turned their view from seeing the Soviet Union as an extended power-asset for Russia, and instead saw the rest of the Soviet empire as a non-supportable liability with too few benefits for Russia herself. Exactly similar to the “why should we carry the burden for defense of others who can defend themselves” which president Trump signals.
One must not just focus on president Trump as an individual. One must look at the collective movements in the USA which led to his presidency. Trump was among other things voted into office because an overwhelming number of Americans experience that hopeless US-imperial habits (Afghanistan is the longest US war ever and still continues) have never led to a "useful outcome" for ordinary Americans - only to losses of lives, dignity and treasure for the USA herself. Vietnam was a clear example of the cost of US-imperial war, and the consequences of perpetual “Vietnam-lessons” have since then finally come home to the Americans.
Like Central Asian Soviet countries, Belorussia and probably even the Ukraine did not initially wish for the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, also the EU did not initially wish for the dissolution of a US empire, which handed the EU a prominent (second) place in the world. Only gradually does the EU now see this development as a chance to enhance the EU in a new global political world-leadership vis-à-vis the USA. Regarding the conflict-views of president Trump, note that his pressure on North Korea is not primarily for the sake of helping an imperial ally, South Korea. What president Trump pursues in East Asia and with North Korea is a very US-centered agenda, even at the cost of risking “good empire relations” with subordinate allies in East Asia. President Trump’s extremely tense rhetoric against North Korea may even have caused the USA a reduction of goodwill among ordinary people in South Korea and Japan. In Afghanistan, US-policy under president Trump is no longer empire-building. Faced with the steep opinions of his own generals, president Trump is simply pragmatically “kicking-the-can-down-the-road” in Afghanistan at “minimal costs”, to keep the generals on his side.
Many erroneously accuse president Trump of having “no strategy” or even of being “irrational”. Such labels reveal a major misjudgment of president Trump. It is no surprise, and for his non-deplorable electorate certainly no shame, that president Trump upon assuming office had only had experience with a national political environment, and that he faces a steep “learning curve” in international politics. The way president Trump goes about to earn himself necessary international political experience is not by reading long analyses by intellectual “experts” (most of whom he has deemed a complete failure in the past) but by DOING. Instead of intellectualizing, President Trump sometimes may try things out in his own practice, instead of initial delicacies he has deemed ineffective steam-roll as far he can go, but later be prepared for pragmatic ways.
President Trump's rhetoric towards North Korea should thus be interpreted more carefully than most observers do. Threatening war does not automatically imply that president Trump will start one – especially if he feels certain that the other part will not be starting a war. This lax attitude to war-threats has probably rightly or wrongly been adopted by most American presidents before Trump. In some kinds of negotiation, appearing a bit “irrational” may even be a very rational style, and also North Korean leaders have adopted this style persistently. Though Trump shouts “fire and fury”, he could eventually still become the first US President to turn and live with North Korea, when he experiences that this is the best that can be done. A similar pragmatism may even surface with president Trump and Iran – if we are lucky. Compared to the politician Trump defeated, there are so far at least no signs that president Trump has any ideologic desires like “freedom-and-democracy-by-the-sword” to take the USA into a new big imperial conflict in the Middle East, like for example both of the presidents Bush did.
On immigrants, president Trump basically continues the reductionist aims of his predecessor - he does it less delicately, but perhaps also more honestly. President Trump ended up by showing a degree of pragmatism with Mexico, and he did it also with China, just like Nixon and Kissinger ended up doing it with China too. Reagan’s lack of international experience before assuming office, and Reagan’s rhetoric of “Soviet empire of evil” was just as condemned in his time, as the rhetoric of Trump has been today, and still Reagan embraced pragmatism and even a sense of personal trust with Gorbatchev in the case of Russia. Not to excuse, but just to create a perspective, even some not-too-good remarks from president Trump have not seldom been heard just as bad or worse from other US presidents and wannabe’s: Nixon was negative to black people, Jews, Irish and Italians, and asked Kissinger not to be too shy about ‘nuking’ Vietnam. Reagan and Bush jr. publicly called other countries “evil”. Trump’s not-so-liberal opponent Hillary Clinton threatened publicly to bomb Iran into a ‘nuclear dessert’, as the United States top-ranking diplomat she made stupid comparisons against Russia’s leader, and boasted in a nasty way with her bombing destruction of Libya: “we came, we saw, he died”.
The vestige of US global empire with its “unipolar moment” and the USA as an “indispensable” nation is all inexorably on way to dissolution. President Trump wants to give the USA a new place in a new world of today, not in a fictitious US-world of the 1990’ies or 00’s. Contrary to the US electoral candidate of yester-year which Trump defeated, president Trump seems to have just a little more healthy lack of desire to resuscitate US global imperial presumptions. Compared to president Yeltsin in Russia, President Trump has not (yet) tried to dismantle the inner workings of the country he is elected to lead, but stock-crashes happen statistically every 7 years, which is 3 years overdue now, so also an inner imperial dissolution may still happen in Trump’s presidential term.
Karsten Riise
Partner & Editor
CHANGE NEWS &
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
