‘Isolationism, global disengagement and retreat are, like appeasement in the 1930s, based on the false notion the abandoned world will be a safe one,’ writes United Nations Ambassador Bob Rae. –Shutterstock

With a hugely consequential US election unfolding at a time when political and geopolitical outcomes are both imposed and rationalized by personality, Bob Rae reminds us that not all actors are bad.

Bob Rae

August 24, 2023

It was neither a State of the Union nor a major policy address to the Brookings Institution or the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. It was the sort of typical fundraising stop at a private residence that every president tacks onto his schedule when traveling outside of Washington, this one in Freeport, Maine. But on July 29^th, Joe Biden’s remarks were not the usual, shaking-the-trees boilerplate.

As duly noted by historian Heather Cox Richardson in her Substack post the next day, Biden’s talk in Freeport was an important statement of the President’s vision of the current global challenges facing America. “If I were writing a history of the Biden administration 150 years from now,” wrote Cox Richardson, who likely has as many followers in Canada as in the US, “I would call out this informal talk as an articulation of a vision of American leadership, based not in economic expansion, military might, or personalities, or even in policies, but in the strength of the institutions of democracy, preserved through global alliances.”

In that articulation, Biden observed correctly that the distinction between global and domestic issues no longer applies. “Name me a part of the world that you think is going to look like it did 10 years ago 10 years from now,” he challenged the gathering. “Does anybody think that the post-war era still exists, the rules of the road from the end of World War Two?”

While reaffirming his commitment to the critical institutions created since the signing of the Atlantic Charter in 1941, Biden emphasized that America needs to re-commit to its global leadership. Reminding the audience that he and Boris Johnson had signed a New Atlantic Charter in 2021, Biden made it clear that, as president, he felt a deep obligation “to defend the principles, values, and institutions of democracy and open societies,” and to “strengthen the institutions, laws, and norms that sustain international co-operation to adapt them to meet the new challenges of the 21st century, and guard against those that would undermine them.”

In most political moments, these words would seem to be just more elaborate rhetoric. But given the seriousness of the global challenges the world is facing, and in particular the deeply consequential nature of elections in the United States of America, they have a compelling meaning. Without the leadership of the United States, the United Nations would not have been created. Nor would NATO, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the original World Trade Organization), or the other critical institutions that have helped to underpin global change and economic growth since 1945. The strengthening of these institutions, and the creation of new ones, have been a critical part of global progress of the past fifty years.

Yet it is also important to recognize the role that the underlying forces of nationalism, exceptionalism and isolationism also play in the dynamic of both American and global politics. They did not die in 1945, and they are very much alive today.

Franklin Roosevelt accomplished what Woodrow Wilson could not. While hailed as a modern saviour on his triumphal arrival in Paris to negotiate the Versailles Treaty and the formation of the League of Nations, Wilson was unable to fashion an enduring peace in 1919. Failing to create a coalition of support for his vision either in Paris or Washington, the Democratic Party was soundly defeated in 1920 and isolationism became the order of the day.

Europe and the wider world entered what has rightly been called the “dark valley” of the 1920s and 30s, and there was no capacity in any capital, or in any international institution, to stop the rise of fascism, the ravages of the Depression, or the return of international aggression. The forces that created that chaos have never been fully vanquished, and they are ever-present.

Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is the latest example of a country immersed in imperialist fantasies ignoring every principle of international law, seeking to impose its desires and will on the world with reckless disregard for the consequences. It is not a conflict to which the world can be indifferent, or which can be ended with a “truce” that is but an intermission to the aggressor.  Pretending that an easy solution can be found is a terrible mistake. Citizens and leaders of countries around the world see their realities through a personal lens, reflecting the Tip O’Neill adage that “all politics is local”.  But not all problems or realities are local.  Many are global, and their consequences are not limited to one country or region, especially in this post-internet, globalized century.

The forces that created that chaos have never been fully vanquished, and they are ever-present.

The COVID pandemic played out on our media as if it was simply a local or national event. But the virus by definition knows no borders or boundaries. It spreads despite best efforts to isolate. In that sense, it is truly a metaphor of our time. The expression “we’re all in the same boat” belies the more difficult reality that while climate is global, we live in very different boats, and depending on the boat we’re in we’re either going to do all right or face personal tragedy. What has been true of the pandemic is also true of climate change, of global migration, and, above all, of the economic consequences of how we collectively respond to the cascading crises that now have us surrounded. The populist, isolationist rhetoric is the same — as if there could possibly be an effective response to planetary self-destruction that is less than global.

Isolationism, global disengagement and retreat are, like appeasement in the 1930s, based on the false notion the abandoned world will be a safe one. Not at all. Politics, like nature itself, abhors a vacuum. Others with even worse motives will fill the void.  Smelling disinterest and weakness, they will seize the spoils of chaos for themselves. All elections are consequential, but some are more consequential than others. Before 2016, it was possible to think of an American election as an event turning mainly on domestic issues, with no major differences between Republicans and Democrats to trouble the rest of the world too much.

That is, quite simply, no longer the case. The Trump election of 2016 broke that mould. But it is also true that the rest of the world has no vote in the election. We can, however, do more than just watch and worry. We can bring certain critical ideas to bear, and do what we can to make our friends aware of the deep interconnectedness of the modern world. No one can stop the world and try to get off.

That was never possible, and it is certainly not possible now.

No matter how exceptional some countries feel they are, it is important to remind everyone that isolationism has its consequences, as does the increasingly unrealistic and offensive idea that some countries have a sacred mission that makes them better than everyone else. The rule of law, for example, allows for no exceptions, either at home or abroad. Russia is an aggressor in flagrant breach of the Charter of the United Nations and the rule of law.  Electing a President of the United States of America who does not believe the truth of that statement does not make it any less true.

Most countries accept the principle that the rules apply to them, that they are not above them, and that breaking them will bring consequences. We do so not because we are more moral than anyone else, but because we know that this idea is the only one that will protect our interests, and allow us to thrive peacefully in the world.

Countries with seemingly insurmountable power have to learn the lesson that change happens. Empires wither. Russia is having to learn that lesson now. Others will follow in its wake, as much as they might pretend otherwise. Imperial habits die hard, but they do die. Such is the way of the world.

Bob Rae is Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations.