United States President Donald Trump (left) and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. (Photos: EPA-EFE/OLIVIER DOULIERY / POOL) 
It is a frequently held perception by harsher critics of the American political world to say dismissively it doesn’t matter very much who gets elected. For some, it is the argument that all politicians are pretty much the same. Yes, opposing cohorts replace one another, but nothing really changes. This is the insight from early 20th-century Italian social scientist Vilfredo Pareto, who labelled this process “the circulation of elites”.
Others argue that there is a hidden class that really runs everything or, alternatively, perhaps, they are in thrall to some deeper, more hidden realities. For some, it is inevitably international bankers and/or global capitalists. For others, it may be an elusive conspiracy such as the one presumably revealed via QAnon. Or, perhaps, it is some kind of “deep state” collective that runs everything from secret headquarters somewhere, absolutely everything.
One guiding principle of such theories is that politicians in the public eye are just puppets dancing to the tunes of whoever really is in charge. And, under some arguments, those in charge are actually just bending to those implacable wheels of an economic substratum. By such theories, the class interests of the real masters are what matter above all, and everything else is just clever shadow boxing.
The difficulty in such theories is they don’t provide much sustenance for interpreting real differences in policies that may come about in the wake of changes in national leadership. Most especially, such theories help us very little in understanding how the differences in foreign policy approaches and a nation’s international relations come about. Other factors are at work as well. As with all other nations and their own unique geopolitical circumstances, the long sweep of history, economic relations and resources; the character and temperament of leaders matters as well — and that is just for starters.
And so here our task is to try to work out the differences between the foreign policy goals and strategies between the two candidates for the American presidency. Surely they both must operate in the same world, subject to the same challenges and pressures, even if they are hoping for some very different outcomes (even if Donald Trump is often accused of existing in an alternate universe)?
Then it dawned on this writer there actually was something substantial that was held in common by the two candidates. “Really?”, this author already hears all of you muttering under your collective breath, “What can you possibly mean by that?”
Well, here goes. Let me explain. Whoever is inaugurated as America’s president on 20 January 2021, that person must deal with an America whose international presence, impact, respect, and influence will be at its lowest ebb in nearly a century. The Pew Research Center tracks such trends and it has offered such sad determinations in their reports such as this.
We now live in a world where Chinese leader Xi Jinping seems to be gaining more respect than the US president. This is despite the fact there is growing nervousness about the potential for a Chinese imperial overstretch in the thoughts of a growing number of foreign observers. With the exception of just a handful of nations around the world for rather specific and partisan reasons, the reputation of the US has dropped to historic depths in many others, let alone in a belief in the idea that America represents an exemplar; that it is the shining city upon a hill, a light unto the nations, its exceptionalism — this as one of the core ideas historically in American civic mythology.
width="853" height="480" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">
Consider the obvious fact that in 1945, at the end of World War 2, the American project had become uniquely unrivalled on the global stage. Its productive industrial base, its financial strength and its military prowess were virtually unchallenged globally. It held the nuclear monopoly, and its GDP exceeded virtually any other likely combination of nations, despite just being a small fraction of the total global population.
Inevitably that would change. As other nations revived, American relative dominance correspondingly decreased. But then, through a combination of multilateral American alliances, the vast economic power of other western and far eastern nations such as Japan and South Korea, and the internal dynamics of the Soviet Union itself, the governments of the old Soviet Union and its Eastern European satrapies collapsed in an untidy heap, and American global pre-eminence was re-established, almost by magic. It was “the end of history” and the triumph of late 20th century American liberal democratic values, globalisation and growing internationalism, that is until 9/11 helped shatter that myth.
The American colossus was in place, but the world also engineered real pushback against the dominant power. The US found itself enmeshed deeply in military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously (eventually along with a third smaller one in Syria too), as well as facing a rapidly blooming economic rival in China, a resurgent Russia led by a ruler with scores to settle, as well as other smaller, but very real pushbacks.
By the time Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, the watchword was not how to expand America’s footprint, but how to refocus American efforts to deal with a different type, size and scale of challenge, much of it coming from its new rival, China. And maybe other more existential ones as well. As a result, global policy would be constrainment, rather than yet further engagement. (See: Obama’s Foreign Policy: How will ‘Constrainment’ work in 2016? right from the early days of Daily Maverick.)
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-08-12-obamas-foreign-policy-how-will-constrainment-work-in-2016/
Even that highly touted pivot to Asia was largely based on economic efforts, rather than an expansion of defence and security capabilities. By the time Obama left office in 2017, the conversation about America’s place in the world had become one of making the best possible accommodations in a world that was no longer dominated by the US.
Then, in 2017, as far as incoming president Donald Trump was concerned, he saw his task as, yes, the canard, “Make America great again” (whatever that really meant), but not, crucially, about any sense of dominating the world. As a result, it was “America first!”, not “Fix the world!”
Or, as New York Times editorial board member and veteran foreign correspondent Serge Schmemann reminded us just the other day, “The troubles of the world are not all Mr. Trump’s doing. China’s rise, Russia’s machinations, the tenacity of Mr. Maduro [in Venezuela], the sectarian feuds in the Middle East and the new crop of authoritarian rulers were all underway before he was inaugurated, and would have taxed any president.”