Now that Donald Trump has won the Republican nomination, capitalizing on his
image as a nationalist tough guy, he needs to fill in some of the details on
his strategic vision for a proper American role in the world. By correctly declaring
the NATO alliance obsolete and urging U.S. East Asian allies, such as Japan and
South Korea, to do more for their own defense, he has identified one of the
most important strategic issues for a new world vision.
The post-World War II informal American Empire has been defined by U.S. protection
of wealthier allied countries in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East, many
times against poorer foes; retention of hundreds of military bases overseas
to do so; and profligate military and covert interventions to maintain this
costly empire. In return, those allies have not even fully opened their markets
to American goods and services. Trump is correct that we can no longer afford
to sign up to defend countries that are now wealthy against adversaries that
do not directly threaten the United States. That the United States has a $19
trillion national debt doesn’t seem to matter to the U.S. foreign policy elite,
which has been reared on maintaining an inflexible straightjacket of copious
foreign alliances around the world. A more independent and flexible foreign
policy is needed, like that originally advocated by the nation’s founders, who
counseled against “permanent” and “entangling” alliances.
So a President Trump should retract those three pillars of the U.S. Empire, so
that the national debt can be reduced, thereby restoring robust American economic
growth. Trump is right that we need to get our own house in order instead of
trying to solve other nations’ problems. A period of economic restoration would
ensure that the currently overextended America doesn’t go the way of the Soviet
Union or the British and French Empires – all of which just ran out of money – into
the dustbin of history. Thus, Trump’s defining America’s global interests largely
in economic terms is not wrong; all other forms of national power, such as military,
political, cultural, and diplomatic influence, depend on a strong economy to
pay for them.
Other important security issues that a President Trump would need to address – China,
Russia, Syria, and ISIS – need to be addressed within this new more restrained
and restorative strategic vision. Instead of the United States automatically
guaranteeing the security of European and East Asian allies vis-à-vis
Russia and China, respectively, the now rich allies in each region should be
the first line of defense. The United States should adopt the more independent
policy of backing up those allies only if a relatively weak Russia and a rising
China become hegemonic in their actions, which little evidence currently exists…