A sustainable grand strategy must also rest on a shared worldview among key political constituencies. If each new government enters office with a radically different understanding of global challenges and opportunities, no strategy will last long. Each new government will tear up its predecessor's policies, shredding the very idea of a grand strategy. Containment endured because every U.S. president from Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan largely adhered to its underlying vision of global affairs. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all embraced variations on liberal internationalism.

Such a consensus no longer exists. Over the last half century, across the West, there has been rising skepticism of the virtues, and even the reality, of nations--of "imagined communities," in the words of the political scientist Benedict Anderson, each unified by a shared narrative. That skepticism arose from a good place: a growing awareness that dominant narratives can be repressive, that they often reflect the interests and experiences of the powerful and silence the voices of communities on the margins. Beginning in the early 1970s, in the Vietnam War's dying days, multiculturalism began to hold sway, at least in the United States. More than just a strategy to manage diversity in a fair and inclusive way, the concept was grounded in mounting doubt that societies should be rooted in some common identity.

In common with much such "political" or "international relations" analysis, it underestimates the influence of global corporations and the impact of Trump's "government by tweet". US foreign policy is now not only no longer consistent from one administration to the next, it changes from one Trump tweet to the next. One minute he negotiations a FTA, the next he tears it up. One minute he praises Chinese leaders, the next he excoriates them. The current Trumpian tactic of blaming China for the Covid-19 pandemic will have profound long term effects even if Trump thinks he can get away with blaming them one minute and working with them the next.

The current global world order is not subjugated by the 24 hr. US news cycle, or Trumps mood swings from one tweet to the next. What is the point of making concessions to achieve an FTA if Trump is liable to tear it up next week? Nobody can be bothered to negotiate with his regime any more. Some, like the EU are just keeping the head down in the hope of keeping out of damaging cross-fire, but the realty is that the EU no longer sees the US as an ally, and is busy crafting alternative relationships and supply chains wherever possible.

Pompeo can stomp around the globe offending local sensitivities as much as he likes. The reality is no one cares any more, unless they are in the direct pay of the Trump administration or are supinely trying to build that relationship, as the pathetic BoJo regime is trying to do. Every time Trump tweets an insult, he is ceding more power and control. We are seeing the dying acts of a global superpower, not anything likely to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, even for the billionaire class who fund his campaigns.

Index of Frank's Diaries