The Loss of American Influence, Immigration and Nationalism
Should we mourn the loss of American influence around the world? That’s a fraught question, to be sure.
Should we mourn the loss of American influence around the world? That’s a fraught question, to be sure. The obvious answer would be, “Yes, we should, because America — a nation in which we have all elected to participate — has brought about incredible good in the world.” I, as an immigrant, came to this country after leaving to Uganda, where my father, a diplomat who had fallen out of favor with the authoritarian regime, would almost likely have been murdered. American has been my home for decades and I deeply believe in its founding principles, even as the incomplete implementation of those founding ideals continues to elude us. The democratic project in America is a work-in-progress, and as a Progressive writer I have done my best to use my (modest) platform to help bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice.
The reasons for this perception are too complicated to get into on this humble Substack. Suffice it to say that Rand attributes it to the hubris of Cold War unipolarity, the Bush overreach after September 11 and international disenchantment after 2008’s Great Recession. None of which are incorrect. Asa nation we have not even begun to fully reckon with the consequences of Bush the Younger’s squandering of American influence during his two terrible, terrible terms in office. And of his two pointless, unfunded wars — in Iraq and Afghanistan — naught else needs be said here.
Polling confirms this perception of a US loss of global influence. “Nearly half of Americans (47%) say that the United States’ influence in the world has been getting weaker in recent years,” writes Aidan Connaughton for the Pew Research Center on June 23, 2022. “Only about one-in-five say U.S. influence has been getting stronger, while 32% say U.S. influence has been staying about the same.” Once more, though: Should we mourn the loss of American influence around the world? A strong and self interested (selfish?) argument could be made that after spending $5 trillion in Bush the Younger’s foreign escapades, it would be better to come home to an America that is weary and wounded from more than a half a century of cold and hot — forever — wars.
And the world at large seems tired of American unipolarity. Howard French, in Foreign Policy (2022) states:
Fighting against something, in this instance endless campaigning against Islamist extremism, prevented the United States from fighting for something—say, helping lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the least developed parts of the world or working hard and with much greater consistency to promote democracy elsewhere. These failures allowed China to replace a United States asleep at the switch as the provider of public goods of first (and too often only) resort in Africa and Central Asia, and increasingly on other continents as well.
Domestically, meanwhile, the United States has been breaking with its deep roots as an immigrant nation, shutting out others even as economists say that the country’s own future prosperity will require a continued and steady influx of newcomers. This self-inflicted damage accelerated during the Trump administration, with racialized rhetoric that was openly hostile to nonwhite immigrants, along with ceaseless calls to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border to keep foreigners out.
The U.S. tailspin reached a new phase with the events surrounding the insurrection against the seat of the country’s democracy on Jan. 6, 2021, egged on by a defeated outgoing president. People around the world who are attracted to what they associate with American ideals watched this spectacle with shock and dismay. I know this from having heard from countless friends around the world who wrote to me or communicated their dismay via social media. Some asked me questions like, “If this can happen in the United States, a leader in democracy, what will it mean for my country?”
I came to the United States as a refugee during the Cold War. America, in the 1970s, was at the height of its power. And when Ronald Reagan, whatever you think of him, signed the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act at the tail-end of the Cold war, it meant something to refugees, to immigrants and to the world. It was, quite frankly, one of the few benevolent things that that man ever did in office. His conservative right-wing credentials allowed him to sign that bill that allowed my family and many others to become a part of the American democratic experiment.
The pendulum swings. And this too, as the old adage goes, shall pass away. The loss of American influence around the world can be demonstrated in several international arenas. Look at South Africa, for one. Why is South African doing military drills with China and Russia? Is South Africa, once a solid US ally, drifting into the Sino-Russian orbit? And Turkey’s Erdogan — more like Trump than Biden — is veering, ever elliptically, towards Moscow (or at least to a greater Washington-Moscow balance). What of India, who would not cooperate with the US in the event of a China crisis, as Ashley Tellis forcefully argues. Whither Lula of Brazil? Or, for that matter, the entire Middle East, where the rise of China is perhaps most keenly felt. Of Washington’s declining influence on the African continent we have already written more than enough.
Fareed Zakaria, whatever one thinks of him as well, has been doing a diligent job exploring the consequences of the loss of American influence. He attributes it, optimistically, to the “rise of the rest,” which dovetails neatly into one of his persistent themes. Multipolarity is not necessarily a cause for melancholy. From Zakaria’s Global Briefing newsletter:
“This is the new world,” Fareed says. “It is not characterized by the decline of America ‘but rather the rise of everyone else,’ as I wrote in 2008. Vast parts of the globe that were once pawns on the chessboard are now players—and intend to chart their own, often proudly self-interested course. They will not be easily cowed or cajoled. They have to be persuaded … Navigating this international arena is the great challenge of American diplomacy today. Is Washington up to the task?”
There is some truth here. The Cold War has been over for some time now; the rigid bipolarity imposed by that reality has significantly loosened. We live in the midst of that. The non-Aligned bloc is no longer relegated to the sidelines of History. If the present Russia-Ukraine War results in another bipolarization of the planet, that new reality will not be the same as the last. The so-called “Second World” is not nearly as weak as it was mid-20th Century. As Syed Munir Khasru wrote in the South China Morning Post in January:
China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are among the nations that have resisted giving up their own interests to punish Russia.
Most significantly, many of these countries think that their negotiating positions in the new cold war could entice trade, technology, and arms agreements from the West. By 2030, the populations and economies of these eight nations will make up three-fourths of the world.
To the stark surprise of many foreign policy elites, the memories of the scars of colonialism in the formerly non-Aligned bloc are stronger than the memory of transactional Cold War alliances. I mean, how could South Africa lean towards Russia when Bill Clinton was so close to Nelson Mandela? The cheek of it!
Forget about Lumumba, the foreign hands exclaim, clutching their pearls! The West is a friend of the African continent! China and Russia just want your natural resources, but you can trust us!
Former President Obama, whatever you think of his late neo-liberalism, had the right idea about apologizing for the past. He was, in a sense, the perfect person to do it, at least theoretically. As an African-American he was innocent of the blood spilt by the American Establishment’s Cold Warriors and thus a good suppliant, after a fashion. But the domestic politics of the first African-American President acknowledging an Iranian coup so early in his Presidency turned out to be a case of bad optics.
And, unfortunately, Optics in American politics, is often the enemy of the bending of the arc of the moral universe towards justice.
Bowen Yang opens up to Rolling Stone about making history on SNL, overcoming gay conversion therapy, and finding his voice (RS)
The Religious Right: Method and Madness (Nina Burleigh)
"Licht’s view of journalism, as presented in the piece, tallies broadly with what had been reported when I wrote about him last year: he took over with a mandate to steer CNN away from the “outrage porn” of the Trump era—which Trump served to the media, in no small part, to distract from his more substantive wrongs—and toward fact-driven reporting and respectful dialogue, a shift that Licht hoped would win the trust of Republicans and others who had tuned out. " (CJR/Jon Allsop)
“For instance, Niger constitutes one of the principal suppliers of uranium for France. Considering that approximately 70% of French electricity is produced through nuclear facilities, avoiding a violent escalation in Niger assumes a vital relevance.” (EU Operations in Niger/Grey Dynamics)
“Following the example of mathematicians like Condorcet, analysts were aiming to create a repertoire of finite and infinite algebraic methods that were abstract and general enough to apply to any kind of problem, be it in geometry, physics, economics, or even politics.” (Massimo Mazzotti/LA Review of Books)
“But the electoral losses and close calls didn’t seem to hamper the influence that suburban Democrats had during the legislative session in Albany.” (City & State)
Unemployment & falling wages in California (Chartbook)
"Once he established his position, (Osiel Cárdenas Guillén) increased the responsibility of Los Zetas, which began to organise kidnappings, protection rackets, extortion, securing cocaine supply and trafficking routes known as plazas (zones), and killing its adversaries, often with severe brutality. " (Javier Sutil Toledano/ Grey Dynamics)