These Cold War Lions Could Teach Trump a Lesson or Two by David Ignatius, Washington Post
Before President-elect Donald Trump brings in the bulldozers to “drain the swamp” in Washington, I hope he will consider the career achievements of two people who embody the nation’s tradition of bipartisan foreign policy leadership, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft.
The two former national security advisers came from vastly different worlds to join in constructing the foreign policy tradition Trump seems ready to demolish. Brzezinski, now 88, is a Polish refugee who served Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Scowcroft, 91, is a Mormon ex-military officer from Utah who worked for Republican Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.
Both were Cold War hawks who were honored recently by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter with the Distinguished Public Service Award, the Pentagon’s highest award for civilians. But both were also outspoken critics of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 — not the belated and muffled opposition expressed by Trump, but the kind that cost them friendships and access.
What these two shared was a vision of an outward-leaning United States that led a global network of security alliances and trading partnerships. This system, anchored by NATO and alliances with Japan and South Korea, was often described as the “liberal international order.”
With Trump’s election, this global architecture seems to be cracking. Trump is so inexperienced that it’s hard to predict just where his foreign policy views will settle out. But many of his supporters (and kindred spirits abroad) are in open revolt against what they see as the menace of globalization…
Comments
Re: the benefits of the globalization/the "integration" thing; this, versus the costs/the dangers associated with the "disintegration" thing -- and as per American leadership, needed or not, re: these matters -- to consider the following three items:
a. From our article above:
"The 'globalization' that Trump supporters oppose is nearly impossible to undo on an economic level: Today’s corporations and financial markets are instantly connected and integrated. But on a political level, the global system is already unraveling, and that should worry Trump, not cheer him. As this American-led system weakens, the beneficiaries will be a rising China and a pugnacious Russia. Globalization may need a “course correction,” as President Obama said Wednesday, but that requires continued American leadership."
b. From a April 1999 speech -- by then-President Bill Clinton -- honoring the famous Elie Wiesel, author of the small but powerful book "Night" (based on Wiesel's time as a child prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.)
"Now, at the end of the 20th century, it seems to me we face a great battle of the forces of integration against the forces of disintegration; of globalism versus tribalism; of oppression against empowerment. And this phenomenal explosion of technology might be the servant of either side, or both.
The central irony of our time, it seems to me, is this: Most of us have this vision of a 21st century world with the triumph of peace and prosperity and personal freedom; with the respect for the integrity of ethnic, racial and religious minorities; within a framework of shared values, shared power, shared plenty; making common cause against disease and environmental degradation across national lines, against terror, organized crime, weapons of mass destruction. This vision, ironically, is threatened by the oldest demon of human society -- our vulnerability to hatred of the other.
In the face of that, we cannot be indifferent, at home or abroad. That is why we are in Kosovo."
c. From a May 2010 speech -- by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- introducing President Obama's 2010 National Security Strategy:
"We are in a race between the forces of integration and the forces of disintegration, and we see that every day. And part of our challenge is to define American leadership in relevant terms to the world of today and tomorrow, and not merely looking in the rearview mirror, which makes it very hard to drive forward.
So in a world like this, American leadership isn’t needed less, it’s actually needed more."
(For an even earlier look at and understanding re: this "integration v. disintegration" choice and phenomenon, see Benjamin Barbers's 1992 "Jihad vs McWorld: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1992/03/jihad-vs-mcworld/30….)