In the last months of his term, former US President Joe Biden has repeatedly warned of the growing threat to liberal democracies worldwide and the US leadership that has supported global security, trade and international cooperation since 1940 . They were unfounded.
The liberal international class has contributed to the rebuilding of a world destroyed by World War II, which cost at least 60 million lives and left many countries damaged. As the driving force of the West behind the defeat of the axis forces, the United States has naturally led post -war reconstruction.
Most noteworthy is that the US not only designed the rules of the new world, but also agreed to adhere to them. Under the leadership of America, institutions such as the United Nations and their affiliated bodies, NATO and the European Community of Anthraka and Steel (Prodromos of the European Union), were established, laying the foundations for decades of global stability and cooperation.
The US was also a founding member of the post -war general agreement on duties and its trade and successor, the World Trade Organization. Both were founded in response to the economic damage caused by the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which triggered a world trade war that exacerbated the Great Depression by supplying the rise of fascism. Of course, post -war stability was marked by periodic conflicts of the Cold War era, such as the Vietnam War. But in the end, the US and Western Europe triumphed, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Iron Sovereignty in Central and Eastern Europe.
In recent years, the post -war class has been under unprecedented pressure, a victim of its own success. After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, China reintegrated into the world economy and flourished, exploiting the liberation of trade promoted by the US and Europe. Ironically, China’s rise was made possible thanks to the US leadership system that is now criticizing.
Meanwhile, after the 1990s post -Soviet economic and political turmoil, Russia has turned into a police state under President Vladimir Putin, who is governed by a revanchist nationalism. Defying international law, he invaded Georgia in 2008, occupied Crimea in 2014 and began a complete scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Today, Russia is a threat not only to its immediate neighbors but also for Western Europe, which, enjoying decades of relative peace, has been invented and allowed its military defense to be atrophy. Despite the high political ambitions of the EU, it still depends on the US for security.
But while the US was for decades the undisputed and widely credible leader of Western democracies, the rise of populist nationalism has reshaped their political system.
From World War II, the world has never again felt such uncertainty about America’s leadership. Perhaps the most worrying is the growing sense that the US has turned its back on their global responsibilities in favor of an international class where, as Thucydides says, “The strong act according to their will, while the vulnerable endure whatever is imposed upon them.
Like many, I hope Trump leaves the devastating and revengeful path he is in. I also hope that Britain, the EU and other liberal democracies will recognize the urgent need to stop based on US security guarantees and take responsibility for their own defense.
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