NICHOLAS GROSSMAN: THE AMERICAN AGE IS OVER?
Christopher Richard Wade Dettling (2018)
According to Nicholas Grossman writing in Arc Digital Media, the American Age is over:
“Trump said during the campaign he planned to keep international rivals off balance. As president, he’s unsettled both allies and adversaries. His threats might be more credible than Nixon’s because Nixon was trying to convince others he didn’t respect international norms, while Trump appears not to understand them. And Trump has a record of openly flouting norms at home. Therefore, his threats to use force against North Korea might be more credible than previous presidents’. They understood the risks — to South Korea, the 37,500 Americans stationed there, Japan, Guam, Hawaii, and now maybe the U.S. mainland — but Trump might not know. Or care. Which means he might actually do it. That’s a concern for China … The uncertainty Trump creates is arguably useful in some business negotiations. But in international relations, reducing uncertainty is usually preferable. For example, deterrence works only if the target believes you will do what you say. And alliances work only if others believe you will honor your commitments. The United States is a status quo power, aiming to maintain and strengthen the global system it leads. Sowing chaos benefits revisionist powers, not the dominant state … thanks to Donald Trump unnecessarily squandering the other major source of the United States’ power, the American Age is over.”¹
We want to evaluate Grossman’s argument in a rational manner, but we have no idea regarding what exactly he means by international relations, the phrase he likes to bandy about in highfalutin fashion, and thereby to soil the reputation of President Trump and America, or why exactly he means it, — whether or not his conception of geopolitics is rational. The reason is very simple: Apparently Nicholas Grossman has no rational conception of international relations. We challenge readers to find any conception of International Relations in Nicholas Grossman’s writing which is rational, or at least one that is even evident to the naked eye, — for that matter.
In the light of such an important omission, we must therefore suspend our judgement on whether or not the American Age is really and truly over, at least until he publishes his major work: International Relations in the World of Today, by Professor Grossman. Until that time we dare not hold our breath …
There is good reason to maintain the contrary, namely that the American Age is in full expansion:
“President Trump’s new National Security Strategy brings to bear all elements of American power to protect our people, generate new economic opportunities, and advance our interests and democratic principles. The State Department will work closely with other federal agencies and our allies and partners around the world to implement this strategy.”²
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President Trump’s new National Security Strategy brings to bear all elements of American power to protect our people, generate new economic opportunities, and advance our interests and democratic principles: This at least is the rational strategy of Make America Great!
American Idealism is the fountainhead of Global civilization. The teaching of the concept is the inescapable lesson of history: As the historical unfolding of the conceptual rationality of the notion of universal freedom, Americanism is rising upwards in the world of today.
WORKS CITED
1. Nicholas Grossman, “Trump’s Biggest Foreign Policy Problem Is The Future: America’s International Decline,” Arc Digital Media, 8 January 2018. [Italics added]
See: “You can lay down all these general principles, but this is not a policy. Surely, if you are to have a policy you must take the particular situations and consider what action or inaction is suitable for those particular situations. That is what I myself mean by a policy, and it is quite clear that as the situations and conditions in foreign affairs continually change from day to day, your policy cannot be stated for once and for all, if it is to be applicable to every situation that arises.”
Neville Chamberlain, The Struggle For Peace, Toronto, Allen, 1939, 33.
See also: “The intellectual superiority of the Left is seldom in doubt. The Left alone thinks out principles of political action and evolves ideas for statesmen to aim at … morality can only be relative, and not universal … ethics must be interpreted in terms of politics; and the search for an ethical norm outside politics is doomed to frustration.”
Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, 2nd edition, London, Macmillan, 1962, 20–21–21.
See finally: “By my definition, a theory of international politics would be a set of generally valid and logically consistent propositions that explain the outcomes of interactions between and among political actors. As such, the theory would contain three kinds of statements: (1) those which identify or take inventory of components and properties of international systems and events, (2) those which identity and describe relationships among the components and properties of the international systems and events, and (3) those which explain or otherwise account for such relationships.”
Donald James Puchala, International Politics Today, New York, Dodd, Mead, 1971, 358.
2. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Anonymous, “President Trump Releases National Security Strategy,” US Department of State, 18 December 2017.
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