Opinion | The world must have no more illusions about America’s global leadership

Name: Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng calls on support for Trump at US Republican National Convention
Uploaded: 2020-08-28T22:45:11.000Z
Duration: 2 min 39 s
Description: Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng calls on support for Trump at US Republican National Convention

Assumptions about US leadership of the free world were based on a belief in liberal convergence, multilateralism and US superiority. But with Trump in the White House, it is clear that these assumptions have nothing to do with the reality

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US President Donald Trump joins Vice-President Mike Pence on stage on the third day of the Republican National Convention in Baltimore on August 26. Photo: AP

Andrew Sheng

Published: 6:45am, 29 Aug 2020Updated: 8:06am, 29 Aug 2020

As the world rapidly transforms, are we delusional or in denial? Reality does not feel real whenever we switch to CNN to watch the reality show coming out of the White House. Those hoping for some normality will have to wait until November when American voters decide.

And those who believe in democracy might be as worried as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who recently wrote: “This November, for the first time in our history, the United States of America may not be able to conduct a free and fair election and, should President Trump be defeated by Joe Biden, have a legitimate and peaceful transfer of power.”

Nadia Schadlow, a former US deputy national security adviser for strategy, has penned an important article for Foreign Affairs magazine headlined “The End of American Illusion”. She argued that US policymakers have been “beguiled by a set of illusions about the world order. On critical issues, they have seen the world as they wish it were and not how it really is.”

Their illusions include a presumption of liberal convergence where everyone would play by the rules; the idea that Washington could depend on multilateral institutions and also help them build “global governance”; the belief that, in such an interdependent and multilateral world, the US would still enjoy its “uncontested military superiority”; and the presumption that digital technologies would accelerate the spread of liberal ideas.

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Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng calls on support for Trump at US Republican National Convention

Reading her article, it is hard not to conclude that the US military and foreign policy community are in institutional silos and have lost sight of the US’ political objectives. Have they forgotten Clausewitz’s dictum “War is the continuation of politics by other means”?

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