Decolonization is one idea that has fuelled, and now, doomed the left. The prospect of dismantling western states and ceding ground to new, morally just, decolonized successors excited its members and inspired a certain revolutionary excitement; the pleasure from blaming the world’s problems on nebulous racial forces was all-consuming.
The ascendant right can’t allow itself to fall into the same kind of self-sabotaging death spiral. But boy, will it be tempted. You can already see it happening to the south.
The United States under President Donald Trump is embracing protectionism, pulling back from international commitments and spurning longtime allies, reducing, overall, the American footprint on the Earth. No longer is America interested in administering its empire — like the progressive left that came before it, it’s embracing decolonization, just with a right-wing bent.
It started with casting out the friendly, longtime raw material-supplying neighbour. Trump jabbed Canada for its laggardly ways, some of which was warranted: Canada has neglected its military, its justice system, its energy capacity and its economy to the detriment of allies. But this was escalated into a sadistic twisting of the knife that cut both ways, with the president threatening to take pains to keep American consumers away from affordable Canadian resources to economically extort us.
From there, the empire-dismantling strategy has only stretched across the greater globe. What once started as a bad cop routine to spur NATO allies into spending their fair share on military matters, for example, has turned into the contemplation of outright abandonment.
On Ukraine, Trump is cooling to sub-zero temperatures, accusing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday of having “talked” the U.S. into spending $350 billion “to go into a war that couldn’t be won, that never had to start” and accusing him of improperly not holding elections — essentially, blaming him for the war. (Trump remained mum on the actual dictatorial power driving the war, Russia). This was, of course, all just a response to Zelenskyy’s refusal to sign an unfavourable peace deal.
Trump’s complaints, it must be said, aren’t one bit reasonable. Ukraine is under martial law and therefore cannot legally hold an election per its constitution — and rightfully so; it remains under active invasion by Russia, which would no doubt do everything it could to corrupt the electoral process.
As for the amount of international aid it’s received, well, that money was voluntarily given by countries that believe in defending the sovereignty of western allies and containing the war to one unfortunate zone in Europe.
Now, time will tell what Trump ends up doing with Ukraine. He hasn’t condemned the country just yet, and the president’s volatility can strike both ways. Members of his administration have offered hope, suggesting that all options, such as additional military support, are on the table. It’s nowhere near certain enough to be of use right now, however.
Countries are allowed to have gripes with allies, but the U.S. is going much farther by indicating sheer contempt for western friends while signalling interest in pulling back from frontier territory. Rumours of U.S. withdrawal from the Baltic states are swelling amid Ukraine peace talks, which would again signal to Russia that the western empire is fracturing.
Meanwhile, Trump has lashed out at Taiwan, the apple of China’s own imperial ambitions. The island nation, says the U.S. president, stole American chip technology — again, attacking a friendly ally in a precarious spot while ignoring their autocratic, corrupt neighbour.
Empire retirement is being peddled as a moral matter — just like the decolonial “land back” activists that corrode the West in other ways. Look to the United Kingdom’s cowardly surrender of Hong Kong, and its prospective cessation of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
Conservatives, ideally, would aspire to empire-building rather than empire destruction. Frontiers need to be defended, whether in Eastern Europe or in the Pacific. Bad actors should be punished instead of friends — instead of attacking Canada and Taiwan, punish China, Russia, and North Korea. Hunt down their sanction-evading oil tankers (which comprise a whopping 43 per cent of global seaborne oil exports), their undersea-cable cutters, their covert enforcement arms operating overseas. A little tough love to convince the rest of the allies to participate isn’t a problem; dumping them to appease enemy dictators is.
Instead, as Substacker Noah Smith puts it, the U.S. is behaving like a country making concessions after a war. Withdrawing, winding down. If the trajectory holds, all of this is a recipe for disappointment for the next four years, as far as geopolitics go.
None of this is to detract from the genuine progress the Trump administration has made in taking back public institutions from the grasp of the progressive left. The totalizing force of DEI needed to be met with harsh cuts; the tide of illegal migration needed to be stemmed.
But in the grander world, the U.S. is setting itself up for an unimpressive future by uncrowning itself as global hegemon. The American empire as we’ve known it has been a good thing for everyone inside its bounds of influence — peace, security and ordered society were the ultimate result.
An empire needs its raw materials, especially if one of its specialties is manufacturing. An empire needs footholds across the world, especially where enemies abut friendly territory. Blowing all that up merely to appease short-term thinking populists will just leave the U.S. weaker and its friends in danger.
National Post