របៀបបង្កើតសណ្តាប់ធ្នាប់សេរីនិយមក្រោយអាមេរិក

The World’s Democracies Must Work Together—and Constrain Washington

The United States used to be known as the “leader of the free world”—a mostly self-proclaimed but still widely resonant title that revealed how Americans viewed themselves and how allies judged their country. Although major democracies in Europe and East Asia at times chafed under U.S. dominance, they accepted Washington’s strategic supremacy. Starting in 1945, the United States’ allies adjusted to living in a U.S.-dominated world and believed that the country would protect them in the event of war.

Those days might be over. In the first seven months of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration, Washington has weakened its defense commitments around the world. It has, for example, questioned NATO’s Article 5 (which requires NATO members to assist others under attack), launched a tariff war with practically every country, and repeatedly threatened to cut off support for Ukraine. Before, U.S. allies tailored their defense plans and many of their international policy positions to curry favor with American officials. Today, Washington’s allies are contemplating a world where the United States can no longer be trusted to provide for their security or to uphold the rules-based order it spent almost a century constructing.

The risks emanating from Washington go beyond abandonment. Trump is not only pulling away from the United States’ traditional partners; he is flirting with working directly against them. Trump has made it known for years that he often prefers engaging with dictators—including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping—to engaging with democracies. Since returning to office, for instance, he has routinely spoken with Putin and discussed carving up Ukraine. The summit in August in Anchorage, at which Trump welcomed Putin on a red carpet and with warm remarks, is only the most recent example. Other major voices in the Republican Party are making it clear that, at a minimum, they no longer feel bound to defend democracy around the world. U.S. Vice President JD Vance has said the United States is “done with the funding of the Ukraine war business” and openly called for Europeans to support far-right forces across their continent. Republicans are also weakening the foundations of democratic rule in the United States. Trump and his allies are redrawing the boundaries of House seats to protect their congressional majorities, firing government employees because they do not like the results of nonpartisan research, constantly issuing unlawful executive orders, and bullying the media and universities. This, too, can hardly be comforting for the democratic allies that believed Washington led the “free world.”

Many of these states have tried to pretend that this problem will go away. They have worked to ingratiate themselves with the Trump administration, lavishly praising the president. But Trump has continued to threaten them and weaken their bonds with Washington. The strategy of appeasing Trump, in other words, could well fail. Instead, it might make sense for states committed to democracy and what is left of the old rules-based order to reimagine their international relations, insulate themselves from the United States’ whims, and try to generally protect their own freedoms in this deeply unstable time. Such an effort would require that they build far stronger economic and defense ties with each other than they have now and make a much greater (and more expensive) commitment to their own security. It will be a tough endeavor. But it could be the only way for these countries to save democracy at home—and perhaps help it spread again.

AUTHORITARIAN TURN

In both his terms in office, Trump has been enthusiastic about authoritarian leaders. He has repeatedly praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. He has cheered on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. All the while, he has blasted democratic heads of state. He repeatedly denigrated former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for example, whom he labeled “governor” of the United States’ “fifty-first state.” And he appears to see authoritarian governance as the model he wants to emulate. In August, Trump went so far as to say that he believes many Americans would prefer to have a dictator in charge of their country.

The biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s decision to reorient the United States away from its historic allies are China and Russia. Although one of the justifications for his desire to improve relations with Putin is that he might drive China and Russia apart, Trump seems more keen to work with the two autocracies than to try to split them. Recently, Trump has signaled this to Beijing in several ways. He has said, for example, that he expects China and the United States will develop a “great relationship.” He frequently praises Xi. And although Trump was happy to heap tariffs on India for buying too much discounted Russian oil, he has not used this reasoning to impose similarly sizable tariffs on China, which buys even more.

There is a seeming logic behind Trump’s decision to turn away from democratic states and toward dictatorial ones: a desire to establish three spheres of influence that encompass most of the world. The first is the Americas, where Trump has been avowedly expansionist. (Democratic Denmark accused him of trying to destabilize Danish rule in Greenland earlier this year.) The second is China and the eastern Pacific. And the third is Russia and Europe.

The risks emanating from Washington go beyond abandonment.

The result would be a new Dreikaiserbund, or Three Emperors League—the pact between Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Germany in the 1870s and 1880s. It presents perhaps the greatest change to the global balance of power since World War II. Washington’s democratic allies in Asia, Europe, and North America would no longer be protected by the United States. As a result, they would have to remake everything about their foreign policies (and probably their economic and political systems) to survive, especially as Washington becomes an active agent in attempts to destroy their democratic independence. Between China and the United States, liberal states would have to protect themselves against the two largest economies in the world and the two most powerful militaries. Add Russia to the mix, and democracies would be confronting three powers with many more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world combined.

Moreover, the surviving democratic states would in no way be a coherent bloc. The Pacific democracies—Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan—often collaborate but also experience bouts of tension. Canada stands alone. The democracies of the developing world, such as Brazil, frequently disagree with all the wealthy ones. The only truly organized bloc is what might best be termed European NATO.

The rich and technologically advanced democracies of Europe, North America, and the Pacific have a history of cooperation. But that is to a large degree because of their common links to the United States. It is hard to imagine them acting as an alliance. European states, for example, would find it all but impossible to deploy adequate military forces to the Pacific to help defend Taiwan. It is also hard to see the Pacific democracies fighting to defend Canada, even though that country is geographically much closer to many of them than is Europe. In fact, the different groupings all have more economic ties with illiberal states than they do with each other. Japan, South Korea, and even Taiwan trade much more with China than with any other country.

SAME BOAT

But even if the wealthy democratic states do not act as members of one alliance, they can better coordinate their actions to provide each other with both immediate and longer-term support. They can, for instance, help each other construct the kinds of armed forces required to deter antidemocratic forces. They can begin by addressing one enormous weakness—their deficit of nuclear weapons. Without Washington’s arsenal, the only nuclear weapons liberal democracies possess are in the hands of the British and the French. And both these arsenals are very small and very much based on U.S. technology.

Other liberal states will need to construct nuclear deterrents of their own. To do so, they will have to cooperate. Consider Europe. The continent will be able to build nuclear warheads quite easily. But it will struggle to build delivery systems without outside help. The Pacific democracies, however, have been working on different conventional missile systems that could easily be repurposed for nuclear weapons. Japan, for instance, is constructing a long-range conventional strike capacity. By quietly working together, the Pacific democracies could help the European ones construct an effective nuclear deterrent. In exchange, the European democracies could help the Asia-Pacific states develop nuclear warheads and nuclear weapons maintenance programs, as well as share best practices on how to keep such weapons secure.

Nuclear cooperation could then expand into cooperation on conventional military systems, which would exponentially increase the value of the massive investments in defense that all the democratic states will have to make. (Right now, these countries are dangerously reliant on the United States for advanced weaponry.) In certain areas, such as shipbuilding, both the European and the Pacific democracies are superior to the United States, and they could help each other keep pace with the shifting nature of war. Right now, the shape of militaries seems to be changing from a reliance on expensive legacy systems, such as tanks and big warships, toward smaller, cheaper ones. Warships, accordingly, may need to be reduced in size and become platforms for launching large numbers of smaller, autonomous weapons. In that case, European and Pacific democracies can use their expertise to develop new ships in tandem.

Other liberal states will need to construct nuclear deterrents.

Democracies could also help each other secure more of the raw materials essential for building strong armed forces. Illiberal leaders are fond of cutting off raw materials to bend states to their will; China, for example, dominates the supply chains for rare-earth minerals and has repeatedly threatened to stop sending them to states that undermine its interests. The only way democratic states can contest such power is to make their resources available to each other. Fortunately, three geographically big democracies—Australia, Canada, and Ukraine—are well endowed with raw materials, including rare-earth minerals. These countries could strike trade deals with other liberal states that help everyone involved build up their militaries and grow richer.

When it comes to economic cooperation, democracies should not limit themselves to raw materials. Trade helps economies grow, and trade between liberal democracies can prove especially valuable because these states have something illiberal ones don’t: the rule of law. Democratic states have contracts enforced by their judiciaries, relatively reliable patent systems, and other checks to provide for a more trustworthy business environment. As a result, they will have an easier time attracting investment. If liberal states invest more in each other and less in autocracies, the rule of law could give them an even greater material advantage, as corruption in other authoritarian countries slows growth. That is most apparent in China and Russia, where graft is already routine and thus already suppresses economic activity. But even the United States has recently been weakening its anticorruption laws, and top American officials are becoming easier to pay. Trump, for instance, has created a cryptocurrency that people hoping for presidential favors can purchase. As such dealings become regularized in Washington, democratic states that support legal standards will become better options for commerce.

Not all democracies will benefit equally from this new economic geography—or be equally resilient to authoritarian attacks. The Canadian economy, for instance, is enmeshed with that of the United States: Canada does about two-thirds of all its international trade with its southern neighbor. Ottawa is also extremely vulnerable to U.S. pressure, given that Canada’s long land border is impossible to defend with conventional forces. Canada should thus try to avoid provoking the United States, such as by developing nuclear weapons. (If Washington continues down its current dark path, however, Ottawa will have to consider the nuclear option.) But although Canadians should probably not go out of their way to antagonize Trump, they must keep strongly rebuffing his attempts to annex their country and must strengthen relations with democratic Asian and European states. Most notably, Canadians have discussed boosting direct defense ties with Europe—bypassing the United States.

DEFENSE TO OFFENSE

Clearly, democratic states have many ways they can cooperate to protect themselves. But in the long term, they should aim beyond simple self-preservation. They should also look for ways to put autocratic states on the back foot. Doing so will not be easy, especially if Washington becomes a real foe. Yet with luck, the United States will eventually emerge from its flirtation with authoritarianism, and they can position themselves well for when that moment occurs.

To succeed, however, the democratic world will have to pick its battles. In practice, that means the most coherent bloc of democracies—Europe—should focus on the weakest of the three main autocratic powers—Russia. Even without the assistance of Asian democracies, Europe has a major economic and technological advantage over Moscow, which is a sclerotic and overrated power. If Europe sensibly and effectively rearms and invests in strategic industries, it can create military forces far superior to those of the Kremlin.

It would therefore behoove this new Europe to do to Russia exactly what Russia has been trying to do to other states (with significant success) over the last few years: destabilize its society and weaken the political legitimacy of its rulers. European states should fund Russian opposition groups and individuals willing to stand up to Putin’s dictatorship. They should also consider seizing Russia’s shadow fleet of uninsured tankers, which often sail in European waters, and shooting down Russian drones when they encroach on democratic Europe’s airspace, as regularly occurs. Most of all, European states need to redouble their efforts to help Ukraine emerge from its war in the best shape possible.

In this way, European states could transform what seems like a weak position into a stronger one. And a vibrant, free, and technologically advanced Europe that can stand on its own two feet will be infinitely more attractive, especially to young Russians, than Putin’s corrupt regime. Europe must present itself as being in opposition to everything Putin stands for. If it can do that, the continent might persuade younger Russians to opt for a European future, which could, in time, lead to the fall of the country’s current system. And if Europe can break Russia’s dictatorship and consolidate democratic rule across the whole continent, it would gain the power to support democracies in other places where it is now in retreat. A strategy of democratic survival, in other words, will eventually be transformed into one of democratic expansion.

If the United States does eventually return to its senses, it can help these states build on the progress they’ve made by institutionalizing their cooperation. Washington will still be best positioned to bring Asian and European democracies together and turn their loose association into a more formal alliance, given its historical connections to each. But the United States will never again, and should never again, be trusted to lead the free world. It could convene this grouping, but it could not helm it. After all, the world’s other democratic countries will not only have saved freedom without the United States. They will have saved democracy from it.

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