Federico Reyes Heroles
Power without legitimacy becomes brute force, barbarism. The US became more than just the leading economic power. It became a true leader through its civilizing actions after World War II. Without them, it would have followed the path of previous empires. Edward Gibbon, the 18th-century English historian, laid bare the causes of the Roman Empire’s collapse. Paul Kennedy, from Yale, but also British, published a clear and compelling text in the late 1980s: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. The lesson is clear: being rich is not enough. Now, Trump is leading his country into the abyss.
Fareed Zakaria said it clearly on CNN: “A selfish America will be a lonely America.” Let’s go back to history. May 8, 1945, Victory Day. The San Francisco Charter, the founding document of the UN, was signed in June 1945. The official end date of the war was September 2. But even before the atomic bombings, the civilizing force had already begun. Trump is destroying the ability to influence the course of world affairs and to promote the most rational coexistence possible.
The United Nations was created in October 1945. But even before that, the work of civilizing consensus had already begun. Following the Bretton Woods agreements of 1944, the IMF was created to promote financial stability. The World Bank—International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)—was originally intended to rebuild devastated European countries. GATT was created to combat tariffs and trade barriers and promote free trade. The Marshall Plan injected $13 billion into Europe’s reconstruction. FAO was created to improve nutrition and agricultural production. The WHO’s mission is to promote global public health. UNESCO promotes lasting peace and poverty reduction through education, science, and the protection of cultural and natural heritage, including the environment. It collaborates with countless private foundations. Financial resources and knowledge are now at the service of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The entire United Nations system is based on the conviction that only through common agreements, which require dialogue as their essence, can long-term progress be achieved. Because of this conviction of rationality, the US managed not only to increase its economic and military power. More importantly, it legitimized itself as a global leader. With terrible fluctuations in a minimal ethic of coexistence, the scaffolding supports the intention.
Trump came to Davos to insult not only the European Union but all of humanity. He assumes that US funding of the United Nations system confers moral supremacy on him. “…Without us right now, the world would be speaking German and maybe some Japanese…” He called Greenland a “piece of ice.” The US contributes between $15 and $18 billion to the system. Its military spending is 45 times that figure and growing. Trump forgets Churchill’s desperate communications to Roosevelt explaining that Hitler was not only demolishing Europe but was a global threat (John Lukacs, Five Days in London, May 1940). We won, Trump says euphorically. He forgets that the US entered the war after Pearl Harbor, on December 8, 1941, two years after the invasion of Poland. He forgets the number of deaths per country: USSR, 22-27 million; China, 20 million; Germany, 8 million; Poland, 6 million; the United Kingdom, 450,000; the US, something similar.
The reactions are encouraging. The parade of leaders from nations with solid arguments is historically exceptional: Canada, Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom, France, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the president of the European Commission. Carney was direct: build something new and seek balance.
No to barbarism.
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