Well, here we are. A week and a few days into the new Trump Presidency much of the character and nature of his administration and its policy direction for the next 4 years has already begun to crystallise somewhat, most certainly on the foreign policy front at least. When Trump speaks of America First and a commitment to the declining role for the US in world affairs, I tend to feel he largely means it and on this if nothing else, I take him at his word. The temporary and limited ceasefire deal reached in Gaza is one he sees as the first step on the road to his declared intent from the inaugural speech – to be remembered as a “peacemaker not a warmonger”.
In retrospect and on reflection there’s an argument to be made that this sentiment was, closer to polling day especially, an increasingly large reason for his victory. In fact recent polling from the US has suggested that Gaza was the greatest contributor to 2020 Biden voters in the key swing states NOT endorsing Kamala Harris his time round. Whether this polling genuinely speaks to a growing anti war consciousness among particularly young and more liberal Americans enraged by the massacre in Gaza, witnessed largely on social media, or to a longer lasting, broader, more isolationist and war weary American public remains to be seen. One thing is for certain though – the days of US led so called “liberal interventionism” championed by Clinton -and to lesser extent Bush administrations- so ably assisted of course by Blair’s New Labour Government in particular, are over.
Britain then in 2025 stands aside in bewilderment as the pre existing shift in the balance of power in world forces continue to gallop and gather apace. Our transition to a multi-polar world of China, Russia, the US and increasingly Turkey and India leaves a once powerful state even as closely as the early noughties rendered utterly irrelevant in most of the major conflicts facing the world today. From Gaza to Ukraine, Sudan to Azerbaijan, the UK is increasingly reduced to no more than an unedifying vassal state of US imperialism. How nauseating it is to see the likes of Starmer, Lammy, Mandelson et al fawn and kiss at the feet of the new President for whom they claim to have once held such contempt, just as soon as a matter of weeks ago. Indeed, the democrat campaign itself, focussed as it was on the dangers of Trump as a fascist dictator in waiting were thrown aside in just a mere 48 hours for a cosy by the fire transition between Biden and Trump in the Oval Office. Is it any wonder people don’t heed the words of most politicians.
Trumps return then marks not just a seemingly perpetual American and British political commentariat psychodrama but to the beginning of a new pre world conflict era. An era that could be characterised just as easily as very similar to the early 20th century period, whichever fits best. One which is dominated largely by raw nation state power, economic and military. A desire for expansionism beyond the currently recognised international borders and a growing reduced relevance and authority for the post war international institutions like the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. This worries me, and I think should worry those with any sort of understanding of in particular 20th century history.
I know it’s not particularly fashionable nor exciting these days to defend the afore named institutions and admittedly many of them are a labyrinth of bureaucracy, waste and nepotism. I know most who speak to their defence these days are associated with the extreme liberal centre responsible for some of the worst war crimes imaginable in the last few decades. But these institutions, hugely imperfect as they are, really matter. It’s why the movement of solidarity with Palestine has leaned so heavily on them to try and hold the incumbent genocidal Israeli government and the actions of Gallant, Netanyahu and others to account. It’s why the anti Iraq war movement continues to call for those responsible to be tried in front of The Hague. It’s why we defend the attacks against Universal Human Rights and for the protection of minorities.
In the midst of the horrors in Gaza in particular, hope and justice for those murdered and displaced has seemed so far away. People have lost faith. The UN has been reduced to at points a bystander, lacking legitimacy and authority, as the powers who created it distance themselves from its founding aims and goals to protect an “ally” who declares the Secretary General persona non grata.
There’s a huge challenge to reform these institutions, re-legitimise and re-empower them. Who knows, perhaps even we need to argue for the creation of new world institutions to better reflect the world and challenges of today with the array of new combat techniques, AI and global tech oligarchs who increasingly shape the world and increase their own unelected, bureaucratic power. We give up on international law, justice and universal human rights at our peril. As the world becomes increasingly fraught, militarised and dangerous we need fully functioning international systems of responsibility more than ever. When the alternative is a world of impunity for the likes of Trump, Putin and Netanyahu we simply cannot afford to give up on those ideals. For its us, working people across continents, who will bare the biggest burden.
