The deepest essence of power is that it reveals.
In February 1991, the victorious United States of the Cold War was at the height of its power – and its heart was weighed by a simple question.
– Will the retreating Iraqi forces be destroyed? commander Norman Schwarzkopf asked the President of the United States From George Bush.
The advisers were in favor of destruction, but the Chairman of the Defense Branch Council, Gen Colin Powell settled in the opposite direction.
Kuwait was already practically liberated and an attack on fleeing soldiers would only mean killing thousands of people, Powell reasoned.
– That would be… un-American, Powell appealed to the president.
According to those present, a touch of emotion was discernible in the general’s voice.
Perhaps it was that, as someone who had seen war, Powell was better able than others in the room to imagine what would happen to the young Iraqi soldiers if the United States decided to invade.
Bush announced his solution.
In the desert, thousands of kilometers away from Washington, came the order: Rest!
At the height of its power, the United States was guided by some sort of ethic—in this case, the idea that human life has some value.
In short: The United States was different from the great powers before it.
Of course, the story continues.
The soldiers pardoned by Bush continued to the northern parts of Iraq to kill civilians to suppress the rebellion.
The decision haunted Bush years later.
More than 30 years later China is on its way to power and its true nature has also begun to be revealed.
Huang Xueqin – woman was sentenced to five years in prison last week.
Huang pushed for women’s rights and was condemned as a rebel.
There are similar fates in the darkest of clouds.
A country has become the second most powerful state in the world, where people who think in the wrong way disappear to prison camps. Few know what happens to them there.
The United States does not need such camps.
President Ronald Reagan compared the state to a car in his farewell speech. In America, the citizen says where to drive. He also decides the speed and determines the driving route.
The Chinese go, where Xi Jinping carry.
In recent years, these two cars have been on a collision course.
To cope with the authoritarian For China, Washington must cooperate even more with authoritarian countries – acting against its own values.
Do not you believe?
You can check by finding a map and looking at Southeast Asia. There is no Sweden there.
In China’s neighborhood are Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and other hideous, badly corrupt countries that often torture their citizens.
However, these countries are needed if the growth of China’s military and economic power is to be contained within the country’s borders.
President of the United States Joe Biden has already embarked on this path.
India is the prime minister Naredra Modi under the leadership pressured opposition leaders, restricted freedom of speech and allegedly killed dissidents abroad.
The country has also multiplied its oil purchases from Russia and left without condemnation Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden has been silent about this but congratulated Modi on his new election victory.
In September 2023, Biden traveled to Vietnam. There he concluded a “strategic partnership” with the country’s ruling Communist Party and predicted a great future for the cooperation.
A few years ago, Biden threatened to make Saudi Arabia an “outcast” because it had killed a journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Now the countries are negotiating a historically broad security agreement that binds the United States even more closely alongside Saudi Arabia.
All this is in the future expect more: less loud talk about human rights and democracy, more quiet trade deals and military cooperation.
It is known that there is at least one man across the Atlantic who is as if carved for this kind of foreign policy.
The trouble is that Donald Trump is “too much”.
Compromising values is not the same as rejecting values. Bad-tasting cough medicine should be taken according to the symptoms, enough, but not a drop too much.
I’m not entirely sure Trump understands that distinction.
That of Saudi Arabia To Muhammad bin Salman can send guns but not a valentine card.
It is known that Washington’s opponents are eagerly waiting for an even colder foreign policy of the United States.
Countries like China and Russia take advantage of every opportunity to show how double-minded the United States is: Say one thing, do another!
There will always be listeners for this message, and when there are enough of them, America is in trouble.
It is not just that the populous economies of the Global South are turning their backs on Washington, but also the loyalty of traditional allies.
America first rhetoric combined with immoral foreign policy is a chilling combination that alienates European and Asian allies.
This is serious because allies are perhaps the biggest advantage for the United States in the competition against China.
Criticism of foreign policy to increase pressure in Washington for secrecy.
The White House no doubt knows that immoral foreign policy is sometimes better swept under the rug.
However, history has shown time and time again that turning to the CIA is an almost guaranteed recipe for an even worse mess.
Doing things in the shadows is a patchwork, a doping spike before a decisive competition – not a long-term foreign policy strategy.
Instead of secrecy, one option would be to tell the American voters directly and honestly why in this world sometimes good also has to do bad.
Doesn’t sound like Trump stuff.
It has also been difficult for Biden, who has often chosen silence as his foreign policy communication line. It’s not sustainable in the long run either.
For the decision-maker, the unpleasant – or rather hard-working – truth is that even an immoral foreign policy needs the approval of the American voters and often also the allies.
Of course, you can always run through one election season without them.
It’s just very little in the Chinese calendar. There, the cold war against the United States has barely begun.