From Far & Near
A New Cold War & A World in Disorder
By Shashi Malla
Trump’s Weird World
The juxtaposition of various events have led to a state of affairs in the world that can be considered a tipping point for our planet earth.
One event goes back to November 2016 and the shock election of Donald J. Trump when all the political pundits were proved wrong. Now all political scientists are clear that this was only possible because of the lopsided role of the US Electoral College, which makes the indirect election of the US president possible. This was already the third time that a president was duly elected in spite of receiving a minority of the popular vote, but a majority in the Electoral College [which is tilted in favour of the Republican Party].
Trump’s election did not augur well for the United States, and it also did not bode very well for the world at large.
Trump was after all a political chameleon and a con man par excellence!
The American political system was no longer the beckoning ‘shining house on the hill’, but characterized by inequality and injustice. It is, therefore, more than ironic that Trump who had promised to drain ‘the Washington Swamp’, himself was instrumental in enlarging it with allegorical alligators and venomous snakes.
Trump’s demolition of the American political system went simultaneously with the devastation of the rules-based international system as we knew it. In this respect, he was the evil-genius incarnate. And the stupefying aspect of his various nefarious moves was not that he was attempting them, but that he was not checked – either domestically or internationally.
Unknown to the world’s statesmen, Trump had started his dismantling of the world order using the typical salami tactics and being praised to the skies by many of his countrymen. The solid edifices his eminent predecessors – Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Truman had painstakingly built up, and every other one had one way or another added to, now Trump the Superman was singlehandedly going to mess up, muck up and even devastate.
Trump proclaimed his “America First” policy, which was nothing more and nothing less than a selfish ‘American alone’ position. One by one, he started unilaterally breaking up and destroying multilateral agreements, understandings, treaties and protocols – his countrymen either tolerated his escapades [to put it mildly] or shrugged their shoulders helplessly – as there was no method to his madness. The world was aghast, but no leader of stature called him out!
Trump lives in his own netherworld, so to speak, his own ‘bubble’ and his impaired personality make-up is such that he is incapable of comprehending the effects of his loose, vague and rambling talk. Add to this his propensity for falsehood, fabrication and deception, and it is clear that he has led his country for the last three-and-a-half years on a merry-go-round.
Without an iota of doubt, his abject failures, indecision when resolute action was needed and wrong decisions at crisis points are the main causes for America’s catastrophic situation in the current Covid-19 pandemic. Noam Chomsky, the world renowned linguist, philosopher and cognitive scientist squarely held Trump responsible for the botched Corona response in the U.S. and insisted that the country was run by ‘sociopaths’!
He is now trying desperately to shift the blame to China and the World Health Organization (WHO), but to no avail. He initially praised China’s President Xi Jinpin and WHO for their prompt actions and timely information. Now the Liar-in-Chief is so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster, that he takes recourse to shifting the blame. He is now fully consumed by his re-election prospects.
Trump’s Policy vis-à-vis China
Trump is such a duplicitous person that his personal relations with other state leaders can only go down the drain. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and China’s Xi Jinpin were at first willing to go along with his megalomania, but soon gave up in frustration, as it is pointless to negotiate with a con man. The Republican Party still protects him and pretends that he is still fit to be president. But the Republicans in toto cannot escape their own moral culpability for the unfolding national disaster (Washington Post, May 26).
A virus infection can flare up anywhere in the world, and an epidemic can spread like wildfire, considering the inter-connectedness of the world today. Instead of blaming China and the WHO, Trump should have been searching for ways and means to mitigate the effects, not only in the U.S. but all over the world and avoid a second wave. But the populist Trump is only motivated by ultra-nationalist concerns, including in the search for a vaccine.
Trump is also unnecessarily interfering in the internal affairs of China. The Hong Kong protests are a matter for the inhabitants and their elected government. After all, it is governed according to the principle of ‘one country, two systems’ and any differences should be resolved domestically withoutexternal meddling. Just as China, or any other country does not interfere in the affairs of Puerto Rico, whose inhabitants perceive themselves as second-class citizens in the matter
Sea. The territorial disputes there are matter for the maritime states of the South-East Asian region. Non-littoral states like the U.S., U.K. Australia and India do have the right of peaceful and commercial passage under International Law, but not to provoke armed/military/belligerent actions in the Sea.
Trump is attempting to weaken China’s technological capabilities [e.g. Huawei] through a web of export controls and economic sanctions, as the U.S. did with the Soviet Union. However, he is doomed to failure as there will be no collaboration from other states.
Latest: Trump Offers to Settle Sino-Indian Border Conflict
In a fantastic overreach, Trump on May 27th tweeted:
“We have informed both India and China that the United States is ready, willing and able to mediate or arbitrate their now raging border dispute.”
This bilateral border dispute [trilateral in sections with Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar as part of the equation] has been intractable since the 1950s of the last century. It is indeed long-running, but currently definitely not “raging” [= violent/stormy/turbulent].
Neither China nor India would welcome third party involvement. Nor is Trump himself in any way equipped to manage such a delicate, multilayered and multi-faceted problem. This may be his last ditch effort to garner the coveted Nobel Peace Prize [and secure a second term], but unfortunately [for him] or fortunately [for all others concerned], it is just way beyond his limited acumen and ability. As the adage goes: ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’.
Envisioning a New World Order
What the Pandemic Revealed
- A definite end of the unipolar world which subsisted since the Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Communist Empire.
- An emerging but nebulous bipolar world with tendencies toward multi-polarity – if the European Union solidifies, and the East Asian and South-East Asian nations get their act together.
- It may not have been the ‘end of history’ (Francis Fukuyama ),but an explicit finale of “American Exceptionalism” , and enormous loss of American ‘soft power’.
- Emerging powers – India, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil [Japan and South Korea are a different category] are jostling for position at the high table, but because of various factors –internal leadership deficiency and autocratic tendencies, noxious ideology [India: Hindu exceptionalism] – must still wait till they are accepted by the international community.
America & the World
Because of Trump’s atrocities at home and abroad, the U.S. will have to embark on a wholescale cleansing of the Augean stables.
Hopefully, Trump’s tin-pot presidency will end on November 3rd, when a majority of enlightened Americans [and a rock-solid majority in the Electoral College] will have voted him out of office and his ‘reign of terror’ will also be terminated. The end of his one-term presidency is the sine qua non for a new beginning – for America and the world.
A ‘Brave New World’?
The end of Trump’s presidency will hopefully also coincide with the last throes of the planetary pandemic, which was also Mother Nature’s revenge on Mankind’s approach to the environment and climate change. The next epoch of mankind’s history will have to be of all-round cooperation, not of conflict. The so-called ‘new cold war’ [neither war nor peace] will have to be buried and forgotten. The United States ‘containment policy’ is also passé.
It will mean a busy period of rebuilding of institutions and relationships at all levels and dimensions.
- First and foremost, the Paris Climate Agreement must be resurrected and fortified. Everyone must do their part.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) must be strengthened in every respect. Its funding must be secured enormously, so that it cannot fall prey to the likes of ‘Trump the Dump’.
- The United Nations Organization (UNO) as a whole must be revamped, and above all the executive arm, the Security Council fully reformed. Too long, it has become a victim of great power politics.
- Hopefully, in this time of dire need, competent world leaders will emerge to accept responsibility and direct operations. Only a spark is needed to initiate the necessary networking. In previous write-ups, we have already indicated possibilities. There is Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore of the U.S., UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and many others.
- No longer will individual ‘national interests’ reign supreme, but these will have to be balanced against the interests of mankind in general. A new equilibrium will have to be found.
Otherwise, as the great American philosopher, George Santayana noted: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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