The one who loses trust becomes forever wary of the one who broke the trust. This is true not only between individual persons but also for nations.
An international alliance presumes high levels of trust, much more than exists with other friendly countries having basic diplomatic relations. Threats and insults by one ally against another, especially in public, are taboo. They go against all bonds of decency needed for trust.
Once trust is broken, or even slightly damaged, it must be rebuilt all over again. That’s difficult, if not impossible.
The world is fully aware and many deeply concerned about the U.S. president’s continuing threats against allies. Here I’m reacting to and offering varying prognostications.
“For now at least, the trans-Atlantic alliance has survived,” the Wall Street Journal’s Walter Russell Mead wrote from the global economic summit in Davos immediately after the American president’s speech there in which he appeared, albeit dismissively, to backtrack on recent threats against U.S. allies.
Certainly, “for now at least” reflects immediate relief displayed by nervous, external smiles of witnesses and markets. I want to believe it’s true for a longer time.
Yet I fear it won’t be so in future. An international, diplomatic alliance, especially of geopolitical military and intelligence relations, requires its unity and survival to be based on deep trust.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, now speaking often on restoring American reputation as leader in world affairs, always emphasizes the role of “trust as essential.”
In the current global case in which the U.S. president has insulted, even threatened his country’s long established, dependable allies, those allied nations for years to come will never fully trust the USA, its leaders’ words, intentions, and actions. In future, even if an apparently different president, showing respect for traditionally accepted behavior and protocol, is elected, longtime allies will still never fully trust the U.S. again. They now know that an even small majority of U.S. citizens can again after one president’s term elect another leader who disregards all longtime alliances and previous foreign policy.
This was not the general fear in much of the past century. Over most of the last 85 years, U.S. foreign policy has generally been considered bipartisan, like “a mighty ship of state” that would not make radical course-changes with each new president and political administration. The assumption was that US international alliances were sacrosanct and withstanding any partisan differences related to domestic issues. Allies were treated with respect.
A more foreboding reaction to the damage caused by the current U.S. leader’s words and actions against American allies came from another global commentator. “Russia and China dreamed that one day something would happen where America would lose its allies and NATO would be fractured,” the New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman warned. “And then one day their dreams came true. The American people elected a man who, no matter what he tells us, is taking us to a future not of ‘America first,’ but of ‘America alone’ and ‘Me first.’”
Even when now many U.S. citizens indicate with words and non-violent protests that this president’s behavior does not represent a majority of American people, the understandable response from people worldwide is that the elected president represents the nation. The U.S. president, regardless of political party, holds the title “Commander in Chief” of the entire nation. That person, especially in a democracy, is the entire country’s leader, global representative, and frontline “diplomat,” regardless of party or personal behavior.
For a functioning global order of some basic degree, the world must assume a country’s leader, especially the leader of a most powerful nation, stands for the position of that country in speaking on the world stage, working with allies, dealing with enemies, leading diplomatic delegations, generally representing the voice of the entire nation in messaging. Other nations rely on this established understanding of representation beginning with the elected leader.
Once basic trust is damaged, possibly destroyed, though dismissed or even publicly regretted by the breaker, it can never be fully rebuilt for any who witnessed and remember. Trust is required in personal friendships. Trust is a required basic component in alliances among nations. Now, somehow, we must work always to rebuild trust with U.S. allies.
Elizabeth “Liz” Colton, Ph.D., author, Emmy Award winning journalist who worked in all news media globally, covering wars and diplomacy, UN international civil servant, US Peace Corps Volunteer and later Foreign Service Officer, now teaches diplomacy worldwide for UNITAR and partner international universities.