Writing in The Atlantic, David Frum argues that Trump’s reelection represents a rejection of the worldview that presidents of both parties have upheld since World War II, which sees the United States as the generous guardian of “the liberal world order … the center of a network of international cooperation—not only on trade and defense, but on environmental concerns, law enforcement, financial regulation, food and drug safety, and countless other issues.”
The worldview Frum describes actually emerged only in the 1990s, when American policy commitments became unconstrained by the existence of a peer competitor. But Frum captures both its ideals and illusions well, particularly in his warning that Trump threatens to turn America “from protector nation to predator nation.”
No nation, in the world as it is, can exist as a protector without also being a predator, a fact that some of America’s allies, like Germany and Japan, have reason to understand better than Americans themselves. But an apex predator does not need to go around baring its teeth. Indeed, in the absence of a significant rival, such a creature might even begin to mistake its own terrifying will with an impartial system of laws and voluntary cooperation.
Trump’s rejection of this worldview makes him seem both more belligerent and more strategically modest than any of his recent predecessors. If the United States arrived at global preeminence by adopting the favorite aphorism of Theodore Roosevelt—“speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far”—Trump seems to have adopted something like the opposite motto at a moment when multiple adversaries have begun to test the limits of American power: “Shout menacingly and retreat to your vital interests.”
This attitude may be a radical departure from the recent past, but it is not unprecedented. In his inimitable style, Trump seems to be signaling a revival of older foreign-policy principles—vaguely familiar today as Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine. It may be worthwhile to recall these discarded ideas, if only as a reminder that a departure from the foreign policy consensus of the last 30 years is not the same as a rejection of the traditions that made us who we are.