Putin Has Made America Great Again
Donald Trump was supposed to have changed the world, robbing America not just of its luster but of its allies’ trust. Here was a president of such gauche ignorance and hostility, it seemed impossible that American power would ever be seen in the same light again. For Europe, in particular, Trump’s jingoistic belligerence was poised to be an adrenaline shot to the heart, Pulp Fiction–style, jolting the continent out of its American dependency.
And yet, here we are, facing the first serious threat of invasion in Europe since the Balkan wars of the 1990s, and it’s as if nothing has changed. The story of the Ukraine crisis so far has been about many things: blackmail; realpolitik; appeasement; even, apparently, Western provocation regardless of the facts. But, here in Europe, the one thing it very much has not been about is American decline. In fact, from here, the story of this latest crisis is of the reestablishment of America the Good, America the Bold, America the Supreme—and, by extension, Europe the Weak.
[Read our ongoing coverage of the Russian invasion in Ukraine]
In my recent conversations with diplomats, government officials, politicians, and analysts both in Europe and in the U.S., most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the situation candidly, I was struck by this counterintuitive conclusion. While America itself continues to to the old order, thrusting the battered old fasces of imperial authority back into the hands of the emperor in Washington.
