Step Back from the World
On March 19, 1920 the United States stepped back from world leadership. Led by Senators Borah and Lodge, the Senate rejected for the second time the Treaty of Versailles, largely negotiated by US President Woodrow Wilson. The United States withdrew from the coalition of forces that won World War I. We relinquished the leadership role that Wilson had taken in the world, and we stepped back behind our borders (back then it was the oceans, not a “wall”). Soon we were letting business “make America Great” during the roaring 20’s.
The result of this was the US was not a part of the League of Nations and was not involved in trying to balance the crises between nations of the 20’s and 30’s. The League was unable to deal with the rise of Fascism, and in the end, our oceans did not serve as barriers to Fascism as the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The idea that a world agreement and organization could prevent world calamity failed, in large part, because the United States was not a part of the solution.
Franklin Roosevelt tried again after World War II, with the advent of the United Nations. And while the UN is far from perfect, it can well be argued that it helped balance the competing interests of nations for the latter half of the twentieth century. Certainly the terrifying possibilities of the nuclear age were also a part in that balancing, as the United States and the Soviet Union faced off around the globe. The UN served as a “pressure relief valve” for those two nations as well, and nuclear war was avoided.
If war and conquest was the existential crisis of the twentieth century, the growing reality of climate change is the world crisis of the twenty-first century. Until today, the United States was a world leader in trying to modify world behavior and reduce the impact of industry on the environment.
We have often been the greatest offender of environmental change. Our behaviors in the past have led us to recognize the complaint of less industrially developed countries that the US can’t claim “an even playing field.” We got the advantage of damaging the environment early, now we have to pay a greater price to make up for it.
On June 1, 2017, President of the United States Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. He claims that he can “re-negotiate the deal” in order to “Make America Great Again” and deal with other nations on an even basis. Other nations won’t, and shouldn’t, accept this arrangement. Because of this, it is likely that the Paris Accord will ultimately fail, just as the League of Nations did in the 1930’s.
The end result of the League’s failure was World War II. The outcome of this withdrawal might be even greater; it may well mean global catastrophe, which will impact the United States just as much as the rest of the world. President Trump has abrogated our role as world leader, instead pandering to his base (and perhaps the Russians) in order to strengthen his political position here at home. He has led the United States to step back from the world. The problem: the world problem will ultimately step up to the United States, just as it did at Pearl Harbor. At that point, it may not be possible to “fix” the world, even with the kind of national effort that World War II involved.
