The name of the next resident of the White House will matter a lot in terms of global politics. However, more importantly, the U.S. will likely – hopefully for some and regrettably for others – regain its power of agency
As readers of this commentary, you will have one important advantage over its author: you will know who won the U.S. presidential election, the most important pageant in November.
So much hinges on the result of this election, because so many people around the world have watched, waited, and calculated their next moves for the possible scenarios of a Kamala Harris victory, a Donald Trump victory, or the inevitable strife and unrest that will ensure if the result is challenged. The name of the next resident of the White House will matter a lot in terms of global politics. However, more importantly, the U.S. will likely – hopefully for some and regrettably for others — regain its power of agency. The world’s only superpower isn’t beloved by many, but the fact remains that we all live in the warmth and chill of its hegemony, while we all feel the political, economic, technological and cultural developments of the “city upon the hill”, as Americans used to imagine their union. But this union is today divided, and that division extends deeper and further than the Trump-Harris contest.
Best exemplifying this division is the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, which are controlled by different parties that have only razor-thin majorities that pursue partisan brinkmanship and obstruct everything that could benefit the opposing party, even if it’s an initiative that’s in the interest of the nation. In order to govern effectively, a party needs to control both houses of the U.S. Congress and the White House, but this trifecta has been rare in recent years and has only lasted briefly, resulting in America’s limpness overseas. The hegemon seems to have left the command room until the conclusion of the election campaign.
Some countries will know how to navigate the waters of the tumultuous reconfiguration that’s coming
In the Middle East, it has been led rather than leading; in Ukraine, the military aid delivered was first hampered and then trimmed by the Republicans; three years ago, the Afghanistan mission ended in a debacle that it today being paid for by the Afghan people. Questions are now being posed: would the next president protect Taiwan if China asserts its right to the island militarily? Would Ukraine be supported with more aid? Would NATO allies in the Baltic be defended if Russia attempted to take lands that once belonged to the Russian Empire? Would the new president bolster or abandon NATO? Would they constrain Israel? And even if the presidential candidate who answers “yes” unequivocally to all of these questions proves victorious, would they have the means to realise all these ambitions?
The status quo cannot be maintained when such questions undermine the hegemon’s diplomatic capital. Insecurity compels other stakeholders to turn to other guarantors, be that BRICS or the G20. Neither of these are organisations like NATO or the EU, nor do they have the basis to become such. These are fora of rising powers that don’t diminish the absolute power of the U.S. as much as they increase their own share of the global distribution of military, economic, technological and cultural power. The fact remains that the hegemony of the U.S., and the system it has constructed, is diminishing.
Some countries will know how to navigate the waters of the tumultuous reconfiguration that’s coming. Serbia has the instinct of playing great powers off against one another, seeking protection, currying favour as winds blow and sailing its little raft from one port to another. The latest manoeuvre in President Vučić’s dodging strategy was to ditch Kazan for Komarno and BRICS for Eurocrats, but rest assured that Serbia won’t join either bloc. It is now awaiting new winds blowing from Washington, to see which sails to hoist and which colours to show.