hudebnik (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hudebnik) wrote2025-08-23 09:56 pm
hudebnik) wrote2025-08-23 09:56 pm
Entry tags:
Style vs. substance in foreign policy
Exhibit 27 on the difference between "leadership" and "rulership". The whole notion of an "alliance" implies a win-win deal. But if you don't believe in the existence of win-win deals, only domination and submission...
From Paul Krugman's interview with defense analyst Phillips O'Brien...
O’Brien: … the United States … has maintained arguably the most successful alliance system in history since 1945. What the U.S. maintained with NATO, an alliance which kept Europe very much on the American orbit, in the American orbit, both economically and militarily, also with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and countries in Asia is, they constructed this alliance system which hugely amplified both America's economic possibilities but also its strategic possibilities. Whereas now we seem to be saying, it's all about zero-sum, what do I get from you? What do you give to me? And within that kind of world, that MAGA world, there's no scope for alliances because everything is zero-sum.
So Trump ends up screwing US allies more than he does, theoretically, US competitors like China. He's throwing it all away….
Krugman: … the U.S. had a specialty of creating international organizations that were formally equal, where we were all partners together. Now, everybody understood that the United States was actually in charge, but we went to great lengths to make sure that the World Trade Organization or NATO were alliances of equals, at least on paper. And it was a very effective trick. Clearly the people now in charge of the United States have no idea of what the advantages of that kind of thing are.
O’Brien: That’s because the United States was getting the substance of power but giving up the style. They would treat everyone as equal without actually being equal so they get the substance. They're now giving up the substance in exchange for acting like a great power, acting like this dominant force, but all they're doing is losing the substance of power.
From Paul Krugman's interview with defense analyst Phillips O'Brien...
O’Brien: … the United States … has maintained arguably the most successful alliance system in history since 1945. What the U.S. maintained with NATO, an alliance which kept Europe very much on the American orbit, in the American orbit, both economically and militarily, also with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and countries in Asia is, they constructed this alliance system which hugely amplified both America's economic possibilities but also its strategic possibilities. Whereas now we seem to be saying, it's all about zero-sum, what do I get from you? What do you give to me? And within that kind of world, that MAGA world, there's no scope for alliances because everything is zero-sum.
So Trump ends up screwing US allies more than he does, theoretically, US competitors like China. He's throwing it all away….
Krugman: … the U.S. had a specialty of creating international organizations that were formally equal, where we were all partners together. Now, everybody understood that the United States was actually in charge, but we went to great lengths to make sure that the World Trade Organization or NATO were alliances of equals, at least on paper. And it was a very effective trick. Clearly the people now in charge of the United States have no idea of what the advantages of that kind of thing are.
O’Brien: That’s because the United States was getting the substance of power but giving up the style. They would treat everyone as equal without actually being equal so they get the substance. They're now giving up the substance in exchange for acting like a great power, acting like this dominant force, but all they're doing is losing the substance of power.
