With President Trump’s foreign policy becoming more of a dangerous shambles with each passing day, the ongoing “virtual candidacy” against him for the Republican presidential nomination should outline a better approach. With help from some wisdom from the past, herein is that outline for more effective diplomacy.
The biggest problem with Trumpian diplomacy is that it is too heavily dependent on Trumpian bluster and Trumpian ego, but too little invested in American values. Trump rightly has emphasized American might, but fails pathetically at making the United States likeable. A better approach would combine might with right, and self-interest with enlightenment. It would not just demand respect it but earn it; it will inculcate societal friendships, not just supposedly personal ones between Trump and foreign strongmen.
This isn’t some call for Jimmy Carter-like, fuzzy-headed liberal nostrums of “human rights,” but for a recognition that some natural rights indeed should be seen as universal and must be publicly touted – even when short-term practicalities make them hard to immediately secure. For example, President Ronald Reagan successfully melded elements of realpolitik with high idealism. The next U.S. president should do so again.
As noted above, sometimes wisdom from the past can help. I have in my possession the personal files of Kenneth R. Giddens, whose 1969-1977 service still ranks him as the longest-ever director of the Voice of America. In numerous speeches and bits of congressional testimony, Giddens explained why America’s image must marry toughness (which Trump of course tries to exemplify) with ideals-based appeals to hearts and minds.
People may or may not fear a would-be bully, but they appreciate strong leadership combined with admirability. The image of the United States that Trump tries to inculcate is woefully lacking in the latter. People usually have no real sympathy for, and feel no affinity with, bullies. And ordinary people do matter.
As Giddens put it in one speech (note: rather than cite each Giddens speech by place and date, I will henceforth just cite him by name), communications specialists by the 1970s had discovered, through extensive studies, that “opinion leadership and influence is a horizontal phenomenon, not simply vertical from the top down as was previously supposed…. In any state, totalitarian or democratic, the government is [to at least some] extent influenced by the public or, at least, a good part of the public.” And, approvingly quoting political theorist John Stuart Mill from a full century before: “The mass [of people] … take their opinions from… men much like themselves, addressing them or speaking in their names, on the spur of the moment.”
For example, “the shipyard workers of Poland are not necessarily the elite and are not recognized by [the State Department] as opinion makers, but they caused the collapse and replacement of a Polish government.” And: “Cultural acceptance and admiration opens the way for the political and ideological penetration that follows.”
That’s why “it is vitally important to Americans that our nation should be understood worldwide; that the masses of mankind should understand that America’s ideals are lofty and unselfish; that we covet no other nation’s territory; … that we do not threaten the borders of our neighbors; …. That we do not seek to impose our power on other peaceful and law-abiding nations; and that we seek only freedom, justice, and prosperity for all men.”
Reagan understood and practiced what Giddens preached. Reagan built U.S. power, but didn’t stop there. He also built American goodwill. He spoke repeatedly of freedom, so much so that famous dissident Natan Sharansky reported that even in Soviet gulags, Reagan’s words penetrated, and offered glorious hope. In speech after speech and interview after interview, he said Reagan, former Sen. Henry Jackson, D-Washington, and fellow dissident Andrei Sakharov were jointly responsible for “the collapse of the Soviet Union” because “these were the people who brought moral clarity to the conflict.”
If Donald Trump ever brought moral clarity to anything, most of us missed it.
There is a price for verbally mollycoddling dictators such as Vladimir Putin and totalitarian tyrants such as Kim Jong Un. There is a cost for calling other nations “s—hole countries.” There is danger in speaking too loudly, not to mention inconsistently, only, as with regard to Venezuela, to carry what turns out to be a very small stick.
It’s time to re-marry realism to the idealism Trump effectively has abandoned. The United States is losing the worldwide battle for hearts and minds. We must again win it.
