A very fine piece, Dan, and one that has elicited (apologies for tardiness!) my subscription. But the US it depicts was never the far-sighted, pluralistic megalodon of Atlanticist fantasies, nor of Trump's propaganda, the latter having twisted self-interested internationalism into an alt-history of being conned, duped, or squeezed by allies great and small, and in ways not coincident with US interests. If only! We fought the Kaiser for three years before doughboy saviors arrived to conquer the Argonne, and most Western historiography, and for two plus years a half generation later we stood the costly watch against Hitler, while American industry grew fat and a previous age's uber-rich argued that Europe was not Washington's business. Remember that Hitler declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor, and not the other way 'round. Likewise, it took effort and leadership - a key bit of both being Canadian - to get Truman and friends interested in what became a collective security pact. A stumbling one, to be sure, often nearly crippled by its own contradictions, but effective too, especially as the 'safe space' for the mitigation, even dilution, of national impulses. The continentalism surf has occasionally run high to our south (Senator Mansfield springs to mind), as has the perennial bleat that all US global commitments benefit Europe; hence, the eternal sourness of the US having fought in Indochina mostly alone, or, later, having had some presumably fickle friends who refused to let friends drive drunk in Gulf War II and stood down. (In each case, of course, the recalcitrant proved wise and the gunslingers idiotic.) The currents Trump rides have a long history, in other words, and those thinking it's all new, disruptive, and narrowly executive-led miss some small quotient of the point: he is as much symptom as cause, and the scarier thought, far more than his gang of grifters and fascists running amok in their ghoulish deceits, is that he actually commands the room and the room is comfortable with his treachery, guile, and baseness. 'Hitler's Willing Executioners' - as title or theme - is no doubt too strong. But is it demonstrably too weak? Thanks again for an awesome, thought-provoking read, as always.
Thanks so much, Dean. I suspect that in all my pieces related to this of late, I should include a disclaimer at the end: "United States not exactly as depicted." In my view, the Pax Americana has been a wonderful thing but it, like the United States, is also flawed in many, ugly ways. My take is a modification of Churchill's famous line about democracy: It's the worst, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.
Yes, indeed. There's a great line, I think from the good Mr Rush in the great (and greatly terrible) fist Pirates of the Caribbean movie that comes to mind. When the heroine says, "I don't believe in ghost stories", he replies, with a pretty decent bogga-bogga-bogga bit of cinematography, as his deformed face fills the screen, "You should - you're IN one!" Indeed we are.
The fly in your ointment is that there is very little of value left in the "international order," Dan. If there ever was any real value in it.
The U.N. is dominated by Jew-hating countries allied with Russia or China or both. It doesn't condemn Gaza, whose government has as its charter goal not merely the annexation but the annihilation of its neighbour. The leaders of Gaza make Putin look like a cuddly teddy bear by comparison - yet they garner more U.N. votes condemning Israel than every other hotspot on earth combined. UNRWA has been assisting the genocidal leaders of Gaza in every way for decades! (As we now know, so has USAID, which you heaped praise on just the other week.) The U.N. is on the wrong side of almost every issue, and mostly spreads corruption, Marxism and socialism, and sexual assaults around the world. And we won't know the half of it until the mandate of DOGE is expanded to the U.N.
It's the same with the I.C.C.: prosecuting war crimes against the leaders of Israel while doing nothing to condemn the aggressors of Gaza. Only the morally deranged still support the I.C.C.
China annexed Tibet after the U.N. was formed, and still has its eyes on Taiwan. Tibet is 5,556 times the size of Gaza (which is less than half the size of the City of Edmonton). The only reason anyone else in the world cares a whit about that zit of a death cult on the face of the planet is that Jews are trying to take out the trash.
The W.H.O. is an aspiring authoritarian outfit that covers up for Chinese malfeasance and negligence, under the guise of coordinating global heath efforts.
W.T.O. allowed China to become a member on the promise to reform its trade practices to conform with the norms of the international order. They haven't done so in 25 years, yet remain members in good standing. They abuse weaker trading partners with their Belt and Road Initiative, among many other traps.
Even NATO is dominated by nations that don't take their own national defense seriously - like Canada. It's a gang of softies who want to scold and tell the USA what they must and must not do with their blood and treasure. Europe has more than double the population of the USA, and five times the population if Russia. If they can't mount a credible deterrent to puny Putin all by their lonesome, that might go a long way to explaining why the world is in the state it is in right now.
Naïve optimism is no substitute for strategic geopolitical thinking. Unfortunately, ever since Lester Pearson, that's all the Canadian chattering class has.
The UN is hardly Jew Hating. If anything the UN structure has protected Israel by letting the veto structure of the security council ensure that Israel is never bound to keep any peace treaties or to actually work towards a 2 state solution. Israel has gained cover from the UN more than punishment over the years.
The UN isn't officially Jew-hating, but it's dominated by countries with antisemitic majorities. And the International Criminal Court has the same issue. As for the "two-state solution", that's a naive fiction that ignores the repeated rejection of Palestinian leaders who really just want to expel/kill Jews. The conflict is not about land but religion/culture. UNWRA is now a Hamas-based organization that has nothing to do with supposedly noble UN principles, and the UN certainly isn't providing any cover for Israel.
It is refreshing to read such a thoughtful article. I left Canada over a week ago to spend some time in Spain. I thought that I would enjoy a short mental break from the Trump circus. Unfortunately his poison has landed on the shores of Europe and the feet of NATO and Ukraine with its predictable outcome.
I continuously wonder how American voters returned such a flawed person to the Oval Office. How can American voters having experienced the turmoil of his first term and the daily reporting of his personal failings hold such diametric views of his qualifications for such high office?
This behaviour reminded me of a famous painting by Salvador Dali entitled The hallucinogenic Toreador which is hung in the Dali’s Museum in Florida. There is one painting but it contains two distinct images. As you look at it you may see two representations of the Greek goddess Venus . Then as you continue to look you realize that you are looking at a Toreador fighting with a bull in a bull ring.
American voters are entrenched in their views of President Trump. He is either the most unfit person to ever be elected president or a man chosen by God to lead their country to greatness. To try and bridge this divide is a fool’s errand.
From reporting on TV in Europe , Trump’s messengers ( it is difficult to call them Cabinet officials as they have no independent value to add) have arrived with all the grace of a bath of ice cold water. Any hope that the issues confronting Europe could or would be addressed in a collegial manner was forcefully dismissed. Diplomatically the behaviour ranked up there with the American treatment of Denmark and Greenland.
The world appears to be confronting a situation resurrected from the distant past. On one side we have a modern version of Emperor Nero , representing the US and Emperor Caligula representing Russia.
It is difficult to see how any international issue for the foreseeable future will be resolved in an orderly fashion. We are in for a heavy dose of chaos.
I have never heard of Mr. Streit until reading your excellent article. I confess this is one of the worries that keeps me up at night—- that what’s happening in the USA will eventually lead to WWIII. It is disheartening to not hear a peep from the UK and our other Canadian allies as the 🍊 felon threatens us. Will they at least stand up for Ukraine?
Terri, Trump and his jackals are wily enough that they have first threatened the UK, Japan and Canada...and Panama and Greenland....which effectively pushes them to pause and think only of their own challenges. The USA under Trump is aligning with a weakened Russia. I am less worried about WWIII than about what Dan describes, the merciless dissection of the globe between Russia and China and (Trump thinks) the USA. With all other countries subject to their dictatorships. Let us hope the courts, Congress, the military and ultimately the people reject that future.
Good to bring up Clarence Streit. Indeed Union Now was quite a success, as to why it has been forgotten some context here, a piece I published on Streit's alternative scenario for world organization and the impact of the Federal Union movement.
“World Organization through Democracy”
Clarence Streit and the Genesis of the Present World Order.
Not sure the “like” button is the right response to this compelling and deeply worrying read. I would like to say we were sleepwalking toward catastrophe, but that would be lazy and inaccurate. We’re strutting our way there a big giant arrogant smirk on our face, as though we knew better, as though the repeated lessons of history had nothing to teach us. In fact, we don’t need to read because we already know that, and everything else too. An old book that only looks new because nobody has read it. Nice metaphor, if only it were only that. Night night.
Your substack Notes don't do your scholarship justice. Again, glad to have subscribed to the columns. Except every one makes me more nuts-for-nukes, while you still trust the UK and France. I've been very aware of this "we've taken the benefits of international order complacently" concern from those same years of reading Gwynne Dyer.
I have one disagreement: you keep saying "Trump" as if this were 100% his idea. He was re-elected, with popular vote, after saying all this and after doing some of it in his first term. He was plain, 8 years ago, about thinking of NATO as a protection racket. A lot of Americans have always thought that way, and were not a small minority.
Now they're a majority, and the idea isn't going away. It's permanent, and eventually the lion will get hungry for the lamb. Probably just after far-right victories in UK and France and a loss of interest in protecting us, either.
Good to bring up Clarence Streit. Indeed Union Now was quite a success, as to why it has been forgotten some context here, a piece I published on Streit's alternative scenario for world organization and the impact of the Federal Union movement.
“World Organization through Democracy”
Clarence Streit and the Genesis of the Present World Order.
Help me out here, Dan. The tariffs, especially the one on aluminum are set to cause us significant harm. What's wrong with imposing an export tax on aluminum? And oil, for that matter. Wouldn't that get some attention down south? Wouldn't that earn us some of that lost revenue back?
Twenty years ago there were similar concerns about the Bush presidency and the problems created by a feeling of impunity in the international order. There was also the fear that the US could retreat into isolationism, see for example https://www.cer.eu/in-the-press/us-heads-home-will-europe-regret-it
There have been periodic, momentary, modest expressions of concern about US policy going in that direction since 1990. There has been nothing remotely like what's happening now. Do I need to say that threatening to use military force against a NATO member to get that member to cede territory is unprecedented? Or threatening "economic force" against a NATO (and NORAD) member to get that member to cede its sovereignty? Threatening to let Russia "do whatever the hell they want" to NATO members whose defence spending isn't high enough? Given Putin essentially all his demands before negotiations over Ukraine even begin? I could go on but ... how can you not see this is utterly unprecedented since 1945?
Of course I see your point. And of course you are right with regard to the Atlantic federation issue. In this sense my question is perhaps too oblique to make much sense given the main thrust of your argument.
Nevertheless, I would point out that while Trump so far has made threatening noises, Bush waged an illegal war.
I agree with most of what you say Dan - we are in a very dangerous place. However haven't you forgotten that the US has been engaging in invasions and regime changing for a long long time. I suppose what is a bit different is that this time rather than creating a 'client state', Mr Trump wants to go the whole hog, from 'Empire Lite' to 'Empire Heavy'.
I wasn't writing a history of American foreign policy so, yes, I left heaps out. And yes, the US has violated its own principals many times (often suffering losses in soft power as a result). My view of the US and the Pax Americana generally is expressed by Churchill's comment about democracy being the worst system except for all the others that have been tried from time to time: Neither the US nor its Pax Americana were/are ideal but they a big improvement over any plausible alternative. And I'm afraid we will appreciate that more when the Pax American dies.
Sitting inside the slow, bit by bit destruction of our democracy, for 25+ years has been maddening. Being at the end minutes of the eleventh hour is paralyzing. We must not let them take this. People in the streets to declare loudly to MAGA-GOP Congress and corrupt SCOTUS that we will not have this. They must stand up and check on power. If we don’t get in their faces, they will not reinsert their spines, they’ll roll on us.
Perhaps we also forgot not just the experience but to talk about it. So many Americans have stopped paying attention to what food breakdowns look like, or supply chains, or what it means when people get Polio and die (or 'survive' but have lifelong resperatory problems, physical deformities, and possibly dead lungs) because they found they could get by while ignoring the systems that prevent it.
The failure of a generation to understand these risks is as much a failure of education systems as of experience. It is, for Americans, a failure of understanding about the rest of the world. An understanding that lets them assume they can maintain position and security while surrendering the alliances that make such security possible. And the rise of a cynical detachment that makes it easy to just say "lol FAFO" when our neighbors suffer from bad policies.
A very fine piece, Dan, and one that has elicited (apologies for tardiness!) my subscription. But the US it depicts was never the far-sighted, pluralistic megalodon of Atlanticist fantasies, nor of Trump's propaganda, the latter having twisted self-interested internationalism into an alt-history of being conned, duped, or squeezed by allies great and small, and in ways not coincident with US interests. If only! We fought the Kaiser for three years before doughboy saviors arrived to conquer the Argonne, and most Western historiography, and for two plus years a half generation later we stood the costly watch against Hitler, while American industry grew fat and a previous age's uber-rich argued that Europe was not Washington's business. Remember that Hitler declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor, and not the other way 'round. Likewise, it took effort and leadership - a key bit of both being Canadian - to get Truman and friends interested in what became a collective security pact. A stumbling one, to be sure, often nearly crippled by its own contradictions, but effective too, especially as the 'safe space' for the mitigation, even dilution, of national impulses. The continentalism surf has occasionally run high to our south (Senator Mansfield springs to mind), as has the perennial bleat that all US global commitments benefit Europe; hence, the eternal sourness of the US having fought in Indochina mostly alone, or, later, having had some presumably fickle friends who refused to let friends drive drunk in Gulf War II and stood down. (In each case, of course, the recalcitrant proved wise and the gunslingers idiotic.) The currents Trump rides have a long history, in other words, and those thinking it's all new, disruptive, and narrowly executive-led miss some small quotient of the point: he is as much symptom as cause, and the scarier thought, far more than his gang of grifters and fascists running amok in their ghoulish deceits, is that he actually commands the room and the room is comfortable with his treachery, guile, and baseness. 'Hitler's Willing Executioners' - as title or theme - is no doubt too strong. But is it demonstrably too weak? Thanks again for an awesome, thought-provoking read, as always.
Thanks so much, Dean. I suspect that in all my pieces related to this of late, I should include a disclaimer at the end: "United States not exactly as depicted." In my view, the Pax Americana has been a wonderful thing but it, like the United States, is also flawed in many, ugly ways. My take is a modification of Churchill's famous line about democracy: It's the worst, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.
Yes, indeed. There's a great line, I think from the good Mr Rush in the great (and greatly terrible) fist Pirates of the Caribbean movie that comes to mind. When the heroine says, "I don't believe in ghost stories", he replies, with a pretty decent bogga-bogga-bogga bit of cinematography, as his deformed face fills the screen, "You should - you're IN one!" Indeed we are.
The fly in your ointment is that there is very little of value left in the "international order," Dan. If there ever was any real value in it.
The U.N. is dominated by Jew-hating countries allied with Russia or China or both. It doesn't condemn Gaza, whose government has as its charter goal not merely the annexation but the annihilation of its neighbour. The leaders of Gaza make Putin look like a cuddly teddy bear by comparison - yet they garner more U.N. votes condemning Israel than every other hotspot on earth combined. UNRWA has been assisting the genocidal leaders of Gaza in every way for decades! (As we now know, so has USAID, which you heaped praise on just the other week.) The U.N. is on the wrong side of almost every issue, and mostly spreads corruption, Marxism and socialism, and sexual assaults around the world. And we won't know the half of it until the mandate of DOGE is expanded to the U.N.
It's the same with the I.C.C.: prosecuting war crimes against the leaders of Israel while doing nothing to condemn the aggressors of Gaza. Only the morally deranged still support the I.C.C.
China annexed Tibet after the U.N. was formed, and still has its eyes on Taiwan. Tibet is 5,556 times the size of Gaza (which is less than half the size of the City of Edmonton). The only reason anyone else in the world cares a whit about that zit of a death cult on the face of the planet is that Jews are trying to take out the trash.
The W.H.O. is an aspiring authoritarian outfit that covers up for Chinese malfeasance and negligence, under the guise of coordinating global heath efforts.
W.T.O. allowed China to become a member on the promise to reform its trade practices to conform with the norms of the international order. They haven't done so in 25 years, yet remain members in good standing. They abuse weaker trading partners with their Belt and Road Initiative, among many other traps.
Even NATO is dominated by nations that don't take their own national defense seriously - like Canada. It's a gang of softies who want to scold and tell the USA what they must and must not do with their blood and treasure. Europe has more than double the population of the USA, and five times the population if Russia. If they can't mount a credible deterrent to puny Putin all by their lonesome, that might go a long way to explaining why the world is in the state it is in right now.
Naïve optimism is no substitute for strategic geopolitical thinking. Unfortunately, ever since Lester Pearson, that's all the Canadian chattering class has.
The UN is hardly Jew Hating. If anything the UN structure has protected Israel by letting the veto structure of the security council ensure that Israel is never bound to keep any peace treaties or to actually work towards a 2 state solution. Israel has gained cover from the UN more than punishment over the years.
The UN isn't officially Jew-hating, but it's dominated by countries with antisemitic majorities. And the International Criminal Court has the same issue. As for the "two-state solution", that's a naive fiction that ignores the repeated rejection of Palestinian leaders who really just want to expel/kill Jews. The conflict is not about land but religion/culture. UNWRA is now a Hamas-based organization that has nothing to do with supposedly noble UN principles, and the UN certainly isn't providing any cover for Israel.
It is refreshing to read such a thoughtful article. I left Canada over a week ago to spend some time in Spain. I thought that I would enjoy a short mental break from the Trump circus. Unfortunately his poison has landed on the shores of Europe and the feet of NATO and Ukraine with its predictable outcome.
I continuously wonder how American voters returned such a flawed person to the Oval Office. How can American voters having experienced the turmoil of his first term and the daily reporting of his personal failings hold such diametric views of his qualifications for such high office?
This behaviour reminded me of a famous painting by Salvador Dali entitled The hallucinogenic Toreador which is hung in the Dali’s Museum in Florida. There is one painting but it contains two distinct images. As you look at it you may see two representations of the Greek goddess Venus . Then as you continue to look you realize that you are looking at a Toreador fighting with a bull in a bull ring.
American voters are entrenched in their views of President Trump. He is either the most unfit person to ever be elected president or a man chosen by God to lead their country to greatness. To try and bridge this divide is a fool’s errand.
From reporting on TV in Europe , Trump’s messengers ( it is difficult to call them Cabinet officials as they have no independent value to add) have arrived with all the grace of a bath of ice cold water. Any hope that the issues confronting Europe could or would be addressed in a collegial manner was forcefully dismissed. Diplomatically the behaviour ranked up there with the American treatment of Denmark and Greenland.
The world appears to be confronting a situation resurrected from the distant past. On one side we have a modern version of Emperor Nero , representing the US and Emperor Caligula representing Russia.
It is difficult to see how any international issue for the foreseeable future will be resolved in an orderly fashion. We are in for a heavy dose of chaos.
I have never heard of Mr. Streit until reading your excellent article. I confess this is one of the worries that keeps me up at night—- that what’s happening in the USA will eventually lead to WWIII. It is disheartening to not hear a peep from the UK and our other Canadian allies as the 🍊 felon threatens us. Will they at least stand up for Ukraine?
Terri, Trump and his jackals are wily enough that they have first threatened the UK, Japan and Canada...and Panama and Greenland....which effectively pushes them to pause and think only of their own challenges. The USA under Trump is aligning with a weakened Russia. I am less worried about WWIII than about what Dan describes, the merciless dissection of the globe between Russia and China and (Trump thinks) the USA. With all other countries subject to their dictatorships. Let us hope the courts, Congress, the military and ultimately the people reject that future.
Good to bring up Clarence Streit. Indeed Union Now was quite a success, as to why it has been forgotten some context here, a piece I published on Streit's alternative scenario for world organization and the impact of the Federal Union movement.
“World Organization through Democracy”
Clarence Streit and the Genesis of the Present World Order.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003218586-11/world-organization-democracy-tiziana-stella
Not sure the “like” button is the right response to this compelling and deeply worrying read. I would like to say we were sleepwalking toward catastrophe, but that would be lazy and inaccurate. We’re strutting our way there a big giant arrogant smirk on our face, as though we knew better, as though the repeated lessons of history had nothing to teach us. In fact, we don’t need to read because we already know that, and everything else too. An old book that only looks new because nobody has read it. Nice metaphor, if only it were only that. Night night.
You can find a free copy of Union Now online at the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.6615
Only when you read this will you understand “UNION NOW”
Your substack Notes don't do your scholarship justice. Again, glad to have subscribed to the columns. Except every one makes me more nuts-for-nukes, while you still trust the UK and France. I've been very aware of this "we've taken the benefits of international order complacently" concern from those same years of reading Gwynne Dyer.
I have one disagreement: you keep saying "Trump" as if this were 100% his idea. He was re-elected, with popular vote, after saying all this and after doing some of it in his first term. He was plain, 8 years ago, about thinking of NATO as a protection racket. A lot of Americans have always thought that way, and were not a small minority.
Now they're a majority, and the idea isn't going away. It's permanent, and eventually the lion will get hungry for the lamb. Probably just after far-right victories in UK and France and a loss of interest in protecting us, either.
Good to bring up Clarence Streit. Indeed Union Now was quite a success, as to why it has been forgotten some context here, a piece I published on Streit's alternative scenario for world organization and the impact of the Federal Union movement.
“World Organization through Democracy”
Clarence Streit and the Genesis of the Present World Order.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003218586-11/world-organization-democracy-tiziana-stella
Help me out here, Dan. The tariffs, especially the one on aluminum are set to cause us significant harm. What's wrong with imposing an export tax on aluminum? And oil, for that matter. Wouldn't that get some attention down south? Wouldn't that earn us some of that lost revenue back?
There used to be a slogan "World Peace!", today it has turned into "A little less war, please"
Twenty years ago there were similar concerns about the Bush presidency and the problems created by a feeling of impunity in the international order. There was also the fear that the US could retreat into isolationism, see for example https://www.cer.eu/in-the-press/us-heads-home-will-europe-regret-it
In which way is the Trump presidency different?
There have been periodic, momentary, modest expressions of concern about US policy going in that direction since 1990. There has been nothing remotely like what's happening now. Do I need to say that threatening to use military force against a NATO member to get that member to cede territory is unprecedented? Or threatening "economic force" against a NATO (and NORAD) member to get that member to cede its sovereignty? Threatening to let Russia "do whatever the hell they want" to NATO members whose defence spending isn't high enough? Given Putin essentially all his demands before negotiations over Ukraine even begin? I could go on but ... how can you not see this is utterly unprecedented since 1945?
Of course I see your point. And of course you are right with regard to the Atlantic federation issue. In this sense my question is perhaps too oblique to make much sense given the main thrust of your argument.
Nevertheless, I would point out that while Trump so far has made threatening noises, Bush waged an illegal war.
I agree with most of what you say Dan - we are in a very dangerous place. However haven't you forgotten that the US has been engaging in invasions and regime changing for a long long time. I suppose what is a bit different is that this time rather than creating a 'client state', Mr Trump wants to go the whole hog, from 'Empire Lite' to 'Empire Heavy'.
I wasn't writing a history of American foreign policy so, yes, I left heaps out. And yes, the US has violated its own principals many times (often suffering losses in soft power as a result). My view of the US and the Pax Americana generally is expressed by Churchill's comment about democracy being the worst system except for all the others that have been tried from time to time: Neither the US nor its Pax Americana were/are ideal but they a big improvement over any plausible alternative. And I'm afraid we will appreciate that more when the Pax American dies.
Sitting inside the slow, bit by bit destruction of our democracy, for 25+ years has been maddening. Being at the end minutes of the eleventh hour is paralyzing. We must not let them take this. People in the streets to declare loudly to MAGA-GOP Congress and corrupt SCOTUS that we will not have this. They must stand up and check on power. If we don’t get in their faces, they will not reinsert their spines, they’ll roll on us.
We have to get loud and in their faces.
We have to take it back.
Perhaps we also forgot not just the experience but to talk about it. So many Americans have stopped paying attention to what food breakdowns look like, or supply chains, or what it means when people get Polio and die (or 'survive' but have lifelong resperatory problems, physical deformities, and possibly dead lungs) because they found they could get by while ignoring the systems that prevent it.
The failure of a generation to understand these risks is as much a failure of education systems as of experience. It is, for Americans, a failure of understanding about the rest of the world. An understanding that lets them assume they can maintain position and security while surrendering the alliances that make such security possible. And the rise of a cynical detachment that makes it easy to just say "lol FAFO" when our neighbors suffer from bad policies.