No one is quite sure which Frenchman in the 1920s suggested that "the United States is the only country that has gone from barbarism to decadence, with out the usual interval of civilization". It may have been a right wing French newspaper, it may have been Georges Clemenceau, though in any event it was treated as more a witty riposte to some US policy than a serious description of the then burgeoning power of the USA. The point was that the election of Warren Harding in 1920 had upended American foreign policy. Instead of joining the League of Nations- a body actually proposed by the Americans under Woodrow Wilson- the United States lapsed into a distant neutrality. The US "return to normalcy", left European, indeed global security without the worlds largest economy, without the pre-eminent power of the US armed forces, so recently the source of the allied victory in the First World War.
With the hindsight of a century, the early 1920s have some significant parallels with the early 2020s and by no coincidence it was also a time of the last significant crisis of European-American relations. Harding lead a domestic administration that was by turns incompetent and corrupt. Until Watergate, the benchmark for American corruption scandals was the Teapot Dome scandal, where Harding officials corruptly took control over assets earmarked for the US military. Harding also fathered a child outside his marriage, which at the time was truly shocking. The combination of cronyism, incompetence, poor personal conduct and all the rest, left Harding as the single worst president in American history. Until, that is, the advent of Donald John Trump.
The truth is that unlike Harding, Trump is not merely a bad president, he is a bad man. His naked corruption, personal greed and thuggish absence of any wit mask a far deeper darkness. Trump simply has no conception of truth. He expects his outrageous lies to be believed because he has an utterly cynical contempt for humanity in general. Roy Cohn's avid pupil, Trump's every instinct is criminal. He has spent his whole life grifting and cheating and now his criminality can flourish unchecked on a global stage,
The problem is that this criminal has many accomplices to his crimes. More to the point, the American voters have chosen him twice, despite knowing who and what he is.
The Atlantic Alliance, built on principles of freedom, justice and democracy is now in the hands of a criminal. The vile alliance that Trump appears to be creating, by siding with the war criminal Putin, is treachery of the worst kind. The traitor-president, having undermined the constitution of the United States, is now set to undermine global peace. There is no going back. The Atlantic Alliance is dead. Even if Trump were quickly replaced by a non criminal, the fact is that the United States has proven itself to be an untrustworthy ally.
The decadence of the American Empire is upon us, and the consequences will be dire, unless the EU can manage to secure the defeat of Putin without American support. Quite possibly the USA may now seek to obstruct the Europeans in their attempts to bring Putin's murderous misadventure to a close.
That would place the Democracies of Europe in a terrible position, but despite the subversion of Russia, and now, potentially the United States, if the Europeans want to keep their freedom of action, they have no alternative but to defy Putin, and increasingly Trump.
The United States will face growing challenges, unlike a century ago it is not a growing power, but in relative terms, a declining one. Trumps actions are undermining so many sources of American power, that even if there were not challenges such as the rise of China and India and the consolidation of the EU, the Americans would be facing uncomfortable choices. In the 1920s the US version of splendid isolation led to the breakdown of European security. Now that risk is joined by new challenges to American security, as they can no longer expect former allies to help them in modernizing their weapons and accepting American policies.
American voices will decline from being preeminent to being increasingly challenged.
The interesting thing may be that in the long term Russia, post Putin, may end up closer to Europe than a United States that will remain locked out.
It is far easier to forgive a former enemy that to forgive a treacherous friend.
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