COVID-19 is forcing us to reimagine what life will be like going forward. Can it be a wake-up call for the costs of going it alone internationally? While debate over the scope of change domestically is a given, it is remarkable how little is being discussed about our approach internationally.
Even before COVID-19, America’s role in the world hardly figured in this year’s political debate. True, there were criticisms of President Trump’s readiness to berate our traditional allies while lauding Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping — and of his withdrawal from diplomatic understandings like the Paris Climate Accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Iran nuclear deal, with calls to rejoin them.
But the Trumpian instinct of withdrawal from overseas commitments and military presence, especially in the Middle East, was not a target of criticism –– save for how Trump chose to pull back. The impulse for the U.S. to play less of a role and assume less of a burden internationally was seemingly shared by nearly all of Trump’s Democratic competitors.
They, too, internalized the American public’s deep frustration with being drawn into conflicts internationally — an understandable reaction to the extreme cost of nearly 20 years of involvement in conflicts in the greater Middle East. But that understandable reaction has become too easily conflated with an instinct to be less engaged internationally, or that, as Trump’s believes, America’s interests must always come first.
Of course, meeting our country’s interests and needs are the first responsibility of any American president. The question is how best to fulfill that responsibility. Do we do so when we insulate ourselves from our allies and fail to lead an international response to those threats that respect no borders and that no nation on its own can effectively tackle?
True, climate change, terrorism, proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, cyber security, narco-trafficking, and global economic meltdowns should have produced such an understanding and did not. But a pandemic — where literally everyone internationally is vulnerable and no one is immune — is different; it creates urgency and, thus, can succeed where these other threats could not in changing the mindset about the primacy of working in concert with others.
To be fair, part of the problem is that there was a coordinated economic response to the Great Recession of 2008-09 using the newly organized mechanism of the G-20 nations. Unfortunately, while bailing out the banks was necessary to prevent a depression and financial collapse, for all those who lost their jobs, homes, savings and sense of security, the ones responsible for the crisis never paid a price. Anger against elites grew and when combined with the terrible costs of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, experts and expertise were increasingly questioned.
This combustible mixture triggered a populist/extreme nationalist backlash. America First re-emerged as a compelling slogan for many in the country, just as it had in the 1930s.
Can COVID-19 be the catalyst for looking again at the costs of the U.S. not leading on the international stage? Some may argue that the polarization of our politics and the difficulty of building domestic consensus, the emergence of China as a growing international power, and a world that is neither unipolar, bipolar nor multipolar but non-polar, will mean that it is too late for the U.S. to lead.
But it is the absence of American leadership that created a vacuum that no one is filling. And, yet, it is precisely because of the coronavirus pandemic that leadership is required to mobilize the rest of the world.
Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia, recently wrote: “The tragedy is that much of the current crisis was avoidable. The key machinery to handle global public health and economic responses was already in place. But for various reasons it was not mobilized…”
In the past, presidential leadership would have indeed meant mobilizing the world. While it is too late for this initial wave, it remains essential to prepare for what is coming in the poorer countries that lack the means — financially, medically and technically — to deal with the COVID-19. Containing the virus here will have limited effect if it will continue to sweep other countries. Until there is a vaccine that is widely available, the U.S. will be subject to more shutdowns both socially and economically, blunting any recovery.
But all other leading economies will also be stymied; thus, there is a collective need. Common sense dictates forging a common approach among our European and Asian allies, and the Chinese, Russians, Indians, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, on the specific steps needed to cushion the shock medically and financially in those states that have not yet suffered great outbreaks of the virus. The U.S. should move to create a G-20 working group to include the World Bank, the IMF and the WHO to shape the plan and the practices to be implemented on issues, including travel, to mitigate the second wave of the virus.
Precisely because everyone is preoccupied with COVID-19, this is the time to revisit America’s role in the world and how it relates to dealing with the virus. The public will pay attention. The presidential campaign should provide a platform to debate this issue. I suspect that there will be a new awareness of why America must lead if there are to be effective responses to this pandemic — and others that could follow. Put simply, American leadership is needed for our security and, regrettably, America First, means America vulnerable.
Ross, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama, is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute.