Last month, United States Secretary of Defence, Jim Mattis, had asked the world to “bear with us”, promising that, “once we’ve exhausted all possible alternatives, the Americans will do the right thing”. It would seem that the Trump administration is still very busy exhausting the alternatives.
In light of last week, GOP operative Rick Wilson asks the question that international relations experts like me have been asking since January: “Imagine what happens when we face an actual international crisis, a major attack, or a natural disaster.”
I’ve been worrying about this for the past six months. So far, there really hasn’t been a major foreign policy crisis. Oh, sure, North Korea has been North Korea. That is also the area of policy where the administration of United States President Donald Trump has been the most conventional. The administration has created a lot of its own crises, but the truth is that it has not had to handle any crisis instigated by a foreign adversary.
I am beginning to wonder if this is intentional. It certainly seems that adversaries should be eager to trigger a crisis when the US is in as much turmoil as it is right now.
However, there is another way to think about this. If the US is busy tearing itself apart and weakening its long-term foundations of power, why strike now when striking later improves the odds? With every passing day, the hegemon manages to self-destruct just a little bit more. With this dynamic, patience is a virtue.
Doing nothing is easier
For America’s adversaries, triggering a foreign policy crisis risks doing the one thing that the Trump administration has failed to do in its first six months: Rally Americans. The US retains formidable resources. The last thing any rival wants is to renew America’s focus and purpose. Doing nothing is easier. If the US continues on its current trajectory, then a future conflict looks far more promising than a current conflict.
To be sure, an enervated US will not encourage all foreign actors to not start a crisis. Smaller, more threatened actors such as Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), Al Qaida or North Korea couldn’t care less about America’s internal divisions. And neither natural disasters nor asset markets will be deterred by the current dysfunction of the executive branch. A crisis could be instigated any day now.
For great or middle powers, however, the calculus might be different. There is no evidence that the current administration is getting its act together. Indeed, Trump’s disenchantment with his secretary of state, national security adviser and attorney general suggests even more discord to come. An American rival in world politics who has a decent shadow of the future may look at what Trump is doing and prefer acting later to acting now.
If you are a foreign actor looking to take advantage of the US, you will want to take action to aggressively advance your interests at some point. But maybe not right now. Why start a fight with someone who is too preoccupied with punching himself?
— Washington Post
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
