The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have awakened the continent from its decades-long economic and political slumber and reinvigorated the EU integration project in ways that were unimaginable just six months ago… This crisis may forge a Europe that is more confident and more assertive on the world stage—one that will help strengthen and define the twenty-first-century global order.
As America lurches wildly in foreign affairs, it seems safe to say that the case for Kissinger is becoming stronger than ever. The belief that America should function as a missionary nation-state, exporting democracy whenever and wherever it chooses, has suffered a brutal buffeting in recent decades, as what once seemed indispensable has begun to look decidedly dispensable, at least when it comes to intervening abroad.
One thing the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare is an absence of global leadership. This time the G20 has done little beyond a rhetorical pledge to “do whatever it takes” and supporting debt-repayment suspension for poor countries. America, which led global campaigns to defeat HIV/AIDS and Ebola, has been absorbed in its internal arguments. And the UN Security Council has confirmed its dysfunctionality.
During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world’s two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.
In a national emergency, the president has many legal authorities, most of which are adequate to the job. But Donald Trump is inadequate to do the job. He is a president who lacks familiarity with how government works at any level—especially the federal government and especially during a crisis…The result has been on full display during the coronavirus pandemic: chaos and incompetence.
The most ominous threats in 2018 — nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula and a spiralling confrontation pitting the United States and its allies against Iran — could both be aggravated by Trump’s actions, inactions, and idiosyncrasies. U.S. demands (in the North Korean case, denuclearisation; in Iran’s, unilateral renegotiation of the nuclear deal or Tehran’s regional retreat) are unrealistic without serious diplomatic engagement or reciprocal concessions.
