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Talk of clashing civilizations reveals the racist, and dangerous, lens of the new U.S. statecraft.
The Slip That Revealed the Real Trump Doctrinehttps://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/02/the-slip-that-revealed-the-real-trump-doctrine/
In her exposition of the Trump Doctrine, Skinner zeroed in on what she viewed as the chief challenge for the United States. In one regard, her choice was uncontroversial: America’s relations with China. Her analysis of why that relationship would be fraught, however, blundered straight into trouble in a remark that immediately went viral: U.S. competition with China would be especially bitter, she argued, because “it’s the first time that we will have a great-power competitor that is not Caucasian.”
It would be tempting, but wrong, to dismiss this as just another racially charged comment from the administration. This was not a gaffe but a profound disclosure about how the Trump administration sees the world. To the extent that there is a Trump Doctrine, Skinner nailed it: It’s the belief that culture and identity are fundamental to whether great-power relations will be cooperative or conflictual.
Even if that belief ties the administration’s policies together, it’s inaccurate, flawed, and harmful. Viewing China as an essentially different civilization, whose rising power thus inherently threatens the United States, is a prescription for a needlessly aggressive and risky foreign policy.
. . .
Yet the amateurs in the Trump administration (like the president himself) outnumber the professionals—and many of the top-level professionals, such as current National Security Advisor John Bolton, are probably cynical enough to let myths convenient to their agendas pass without challenge. The simple fact that The Clash of Civilizations became a best-seller suggests that ideas like Skinner’s really might find an audience. It might not be a large one, but it could be large enough.
There’s no doubt that contemporary China is a more complicated—and aggressive—challenge than a previous generation of U.S. policymakers expected. But that’s different from saying that Washington and Beijing can’t conduct normal (if high-stakes) diplomacy at all.
By creating an illusion of constant, unavoidable civilizational conflict, Skinner and the administration are pursuing a needlessly aggressive policy—and one that, by confirming Chinese hard-liners’ worst-case scenarios, risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the Trump Doctrine really has resurrected civilizational thinking as its central plank, then the consequence could be sparking a rivalry that could risk civilization itself.
It would be tempting, but wrong, to dismiss this as just another racially charged comment from the administration. This was not a gaffe but a profound disclosure about how the Trump administration sees the world. To the extent that there is a Trump Doctrine, Skinner nailed it: It’s the belief that culture and identity are fundamental to whether great-power relations will be cooperative or conflictual.
Even if that belief ties the administration’s policies together, it’s inaccurate, flawed, and harmful. Viewing China as an essentially different civilization, whose rising power thus inherently threatens the United States, is a prescription for a needlessly aggressive and risky foreign policy.
. . .
Yet the amateurs in the Trump administration (like the president himself) outnumber the professionals—and many of the top-level professionals, such as current National Security Advisor John Bolton, are probably cynical enough to let myths convenient to their agendas pass without challenge. The simple fact that The Clash of Civilizations became a best-seller suggests that ideas like Skinner’s really might find an audience. It might not be a large one, but it could be large enough.
There’s no doubt that contemporary China is a more complicated—and aggressive—challenge than a previous generation of U.S. policymakers expected. But that’s different from saying that Washington and Beijing can’t conduct normal (if high-stakes) diplomacy at all.
By creating an illusion of constant, unavoidable civilizational conflict, Skinner and the administration are pursuing a needlessly aggressive policy—and one that, by confirming Chinese hard-liners’ worst-case scenarios, risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the Trump Doctrine really has resurrected civilizational thinking as its central plank, then the consequence could be sparking a rivalry that could risk civilization itself.
REFERENCE LINK: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/state-department-preparing-for-clash-of-civilizations-with-china