For almost eighty years America has been the biggest geopolitical player in the world. And maybe the biggest player in world history.
America has supported and defended democratic governments whenever they started, and wherever they happened to be.
It has created a world economy by ensuring that countries and companies play by the rule of law, and that trade agreements were upheld.
It has protected world trade with its Air Force and Navy. Ships, planes, and commercial communication systems functioned freely, enabling citizens and cargo to move safely worldwide.
That has now changed. America has turned inward to seemingly fix its own problems.
President Trump has pulled back on further trade agreements.
He has worked to secure our own borders instead of everyone else’s borders.
He is ensuring that American workers are not exploited by foreign workers.
So, while we were the major global player for the last eighty years, we are now the major local player ensuring Americans get a fair deal.
We have started a new era of localism.
I’m a globalist. I’m proud of what America has accomplished. No other super power in history normalized the world more effectively than America.
But, and I say this with a degree of sadness, maybe it’s time to test what the world will do without America as the guardian of global freedom.
Maybe, this is report card time. Will the nations of the world return to military dictatorships and strong man rule? Will the world turn its back on democracy, the rule of law, open markets, a rules based economy, stable and truthful peace accords globally?
I would hope not. But, I am cautious. History is like a corkscrew. Every so often, in some form, we tend to return to what we were. With slight improvement in the advancement in technology, history will turn back to a time of local autocratic rule of prior centuries.
However, if one lives long enough, the corkscrew returns, albeit a little higher, to where it once was, that is, more democratic and more global.
So the bottom line for America right now is: as a nation we are turning inward resulting in our own domestic infrastructure improving dramatically. Education outcomes improving, family incomes growing. Our military will be beefed up, and become unbelievably muscular. It not only will be the superior force on land and sea, but space as well. In exchange, the world as a whole, will become more tenuous, more violent, more chaotic, and more dictator oriented.
This will lead to America having to flex its military might, much as it did in WW2. Only this time, it might have a terrible bloodletting with China, a nation much larger and far more powerful than Germany ever could have imagined becoming in the 1940’s.
Maybe this will happen, maybe not. But, know this, history repeats itself, but with newer and more powerful technology.