One of the most misleading, including self-misleading, things a person can do is try to hard to fit things into preconceived boxes and categories. This can be particularly treacherous in an intellectual sense when self-segregated into an echo chamber. Your humble author believes that even wrong viewpoints can be insightful and/or informative, and thus worth considering, if for no other reason than to refine one’s own views, or at least the arguments therefor. One such interesting idea that many, if not most, have contemplated is “sovereigntism”.
This political philosophy has been brought up by a Professor at Rutgers an opined upon by an exile from the Right. Your humble author does not completely agree with either, but both bring up ideas to mull upon, and both are worth a biblio-libation, so as to speak.
Specifically, the concept of “sovereigntism” is used to attempt to describe Trump and provide a historical basis for his positions. Trump is not really an isolationist, and though he doesn’t have a global or particularly outward looking governing philosophy, is more than willing to obsess over Greenland, Mexico, and Canada. The square to that circle is said to be found in the Lodge Reservations from a bit over a century ago.
In one view, it is a rejection of interconnectedness, which is seen as a weakness and vulnerability. It was a rejection of the idea that the country was made subordinate to an Internationalist ideology, if not a trans-national elite. While rejection a globalist order, this was not a call for isolationism, as support for foreign nationalists (or purported nationalists). At the beginning of the Cold War, before the sheer magnitude of Communism’s and the Soviet Union’s threat was clear, resistance to international bodies or global reach were noted—Bob Taft, the Senator from Ohio, being one highlighted example. Yet even then, support for nationalist groups or really any group that seemed to stand against this global and common threat were championed.
Thus we see today a rejection of any trans-national entity, be it governmental, and NGO, or business combined with a reticence to involve ourselves with things that purportedly don’t have anything to do with us while supporting fellow world travelers who share the same global enemies.
While this is not inconsistent with Trump’s actions or that of his Administration, it is not without cromulent criticism in declaring a parallel to be overlapping. In another view, in partial agreement, but ultimately presenting an alternative, this view of “sovereigntism” is less about “muh principles”, as some may say, than the view that we should get away with whatever America wants that we can get away with. In such a view, America has no friends but only powers that we can make deals with, as if international politics were one big series of New York real estate deals. Any alliance or mutual defense treaty binds us; even if we can and would insist it binds others, such covenants must always be in one direction. As inconsistent with the alleged past practitioners as it may be, it is a bit more accurate, or at least less conflating, than considering what we see now as “isolationist”.
But the term “sovereigntism” is necessarily an ambiguous one. After all, if it involves the U.S. acting in its own best interest even at the expense of others, then it practically begs the question of what that “best interest” is.
Therein lies the crux of the difference. What we see is a wholesale rejection of the utility of alliances and global leadership. The restraining nature of our alliances and intertwined economies is over-emphasized as a collar around America’s neck for which we see no benefit, but rather are used by parasites. This is a very narrow and myopic view that sees international politics as purely transactional on an overly temporary basis. Make a deal, get what you want, and then go back to adversarial relations. This is a view of a New Yorker who is used to making pay-for-play political deals with nothing owed more than the immediate deal, artless or otherwise.
Benefits must be immediate, and when they are not useful for the time being, can be tosses and then renegotiated as needed. In this view, America is an expy for Trump as all things international are expies for New York real estate. Rather than parasites, as Europe, Japan, &c. are seen, they ought to be tosses aside and treated seriously only if they become strong and worthy of an artful deal. This is why Russia and Communist China, even North Korea, are shown respect—they are “strong” adversaries worthy of haggling with and powerful enough to be drawn in for a transactional deal.
The limitation of this view of America’s new foreign policy outlook is slightly complicated by the purported “National Conservatives” and embodied in J.D. Vance. Their view is more utopian or fantasy based, as their love for historical grand deals for slicing up spheres of interest lie. Combined with this is, of course, the hatred of “globalists”, not just of a global power over the U.S., but a hatred that the U.S. might become—or remain—that global power. The frothing hatred for purported “forever wars” or the maintenance of global reach is seen, which is not as helping or protecting America, but a distracting from the true enemies of America and of the world, which is embodied by faceless corporations and “Neoconservatives” who are said to fuel their elitism by exploiting an crushing the proletariat.
This is a far more narrow and myopic take on “sovereigntism” that is more isolationist, or at least strictly non-interventionist in others’ sphere but highly interventionist if nor imperial within ours. Russia, and even Communist China, ought to be allowed their sphere of power over the Old World (or at least the world outside of North America give or take a Golden Circle). America, then, keeps to itself but reserves a moral right to keep its neighbors in line to serve as a buffer. This is the same view that results in pro-Russian support for a buffer of European countries that laid on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
In this view, if the America does not interfere with them or their sphere, then we will be left alone in ours. This presumes that other countries like Russia only act defensively against the globalists in America; for this to be true, then it means that only America is capable of such Neoconservative globalist “warmongering”. Russia and other powers being so supreme in their spheres serves as a check against this oh-so-domestic threat. Ultimately, purveyors of such a view Blame America First.
This is folly, of course. ‘Tis a pollyanna and utopian vision that makes the cardinal mistake of assuming that others think the same way you do. In reality, withdrawing from the world, even with head held high, means slinking away with tail square between the legs, and invited antagonistic powers to fill the void. In both the case of Trump and the Vancian NatCons, a short term immanentization can and will eventually fall pray to a diminishment of power—perilous in peaceful times, and practically suicidal otherwise. The willingness to abandon Diego Garcia is but one explicit example of this.
America, as present, has global reach which it is able to maintain at little cost and with an all volunteer army in a peacetime economy. This has never truly happened before and it a happy accident of history. It can never be reclaimed once tossed away, and we’d always be weaker if we did so. Militarily, we have countries around the world that can serve as buffers against antagonistic forces with their own troops serving as defense for our own homeland by keeping threats as far away as possible from us and our enemies as week as possible. Our contribution is the heavier military power and global reach. As such, we have that “buffer” without needing to bully a neighbor or even spend much capital (monetary or influence). Even in the absence of a threat, this arrangement keeps our allies firmly in our sphere and friendship and away from gaining power that could be turned against us in a conflict (military or economic).
Even beyond the myopic considerations of war and conflict, our present arrangement as global leaders means economic dominance, cultural dominance, linguistic dominance, scientific dominance, &c. We are the leaders and that leadership and power means that external threats are that less threatening.
Is this perfect? No, nothing is ever perfect. Even if less than utopian, these are powerful assets that we ought not toss in a mad attempt at immanentizing some eschaton, or worse, burned to punish “Neocons” or big businesses or whatever demonized powers there maybe to achieve catharsis against those some may blame for slights or being put down, be that real or imagined.
Putting America’s sovereignty—indeed America itself—first means eschewing both narrow short-term deals and regional hegemonies locked in some utopian mutual respect. America’s best interest, what puts America First, is what facilitates its own propagation now and in the future. Pre-emptive surrender of our global reach and influence is the opposite America’s interest and the opposite of America being, or becoming, great.
