Make Denmark angry. Make Norway angry. Make NATO’s leaders angry.
President Donald Trump’s drive to acquire Greenland from Denmark, whose government — along with that of Greenland — emphatically rejects the idea, has unnerved, offended and outraged leaders of countries considered allies for decades.
It’s the latest, and perhaps most significant, eruption of an attitude of disdain towards allies that has become a hallmark of the second Trump administration, which has espoused an America First approach to the world.
As a former diplomat, I’m aware that how the U.S. treats its allies has been a crucial question in every presidency, since George Washington became the country’s first chief executive. On his way out of that job, Washington said something that Trump and his fellow America First advocates would probably embrace.
In what’s known as his “Farewell Address,” Washington warned Americans against “entangling alliances.” Washington wanted America to treat all nations fairly, and warned against both permanent friendships and permanent enemies.
The irony is that Washington would never have become president without the assistance of the not-yet-United-States’ first ally, France.
In 1778, after two years of brilliant diplomacy by Benjamin Franklin, the not-yet-United States and the Kingdom of France signed a treaty of alliance as the American Colonies struggled to win their war for independence from Britain.
France sent soldiers, money and ships to the American revolutionaries. Within three years, after a major intervention by the French fleet, the battle of Yorktown in 1781 effectively ended the war and America was independent.
Isolationism, then war
American political leaders largely heeded Washington’s warning against alliances throughout the 1800s. The Atlantic Ocean shielded the young nation from Europe’s problems and many conflicts; America’s closest neighbors had smaller populations and less military might.
Aside from the War of 1812, in which the U.S. fought the British, America largely found itself protected from the outside world’s problems.
That began to change when Europe descended into the brutality of World War I.
It was hard for the U.S. to maintain neutrality, and President Woodrow Wilson led the U.S. into the war in 1917 as an ally of the Western European nations. When he asked Congress for a declaration of war, Wilson asserted the value of like-minded allies: “A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations.”
Immediately after the war, the Allies — led by the U.S., France and Britain — stayed together to craft the peace agreements, feed the war-ravaged parts of Europe and intervene in Russia after the Communist Revolution there.
Prosperity came along with the peace, helping the U.S. quickly develop into a global economic power.
However, within a few years, American politicians returned to traditional isolationism in political and military matters and continued this attitude well into the 1930s.
After World War II began, it became clear to President Franklin Roosevelt that the U.S. would get caught up in it. The U.S. began sending arms and other assistance to Britain and quietly began military planning with London.
When the Japanese attacked Hawaii in 1941 and Adolf Hitler declared war on the U.S., America quickly entered World War II in an alliance with Britain, the Free French and others. Throughout the war, the Allies worked together on matters large and small.
As World War II ended, the wartime alliance produced two longer-term partnerships built on the understanding that working together had produced a powerful and effective counter to fascism.
Post-World War II alliances
The first of these alliances is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. The original members were the U.S., Canada, Britain, France and others of the wartime Allies. There are now 32 members, including Poland, Hungary and Turkey.
The aims of NATO were to keep peace in Europe and contain the growing Communist threat from the Soviet Union. NATO’s supporters feel that the alliance has met its goals well. And NATO troops went to Afghanistan along with the U.S. military after 9/11.
The other institution is the United Nations. The U.N. is many things — a humanitarian aid organization, a forum for countries to raise their issues and a source of international law.
However, it is also an alliance. The U.N. Security Council on several occasions authorized the use of force by members, such as in the first Gulf War against Iraq.
The wartime Allies also created institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organization of American States. During my 35-year diplomatic career, I worked with all of these institutions, particularly in efforts to stabilize Africa. They keep the peace and support development efforts with loans and grants.
Admirers of this postwar liberal international order point to the limited number of major armed conflicts during the past 80 years, the globalized economy and international cooperation on important matters such as disease control and fighting terrorism.
Detractors point to this system’s inability to stop some very deadly conflicts, such as Vietnam or Ukraine, and the large populations that haven’t done well under globalization as evidence of its flaws.
The world would look dramatically different without the Allies’ victories in the two World Wars, the stable worldwide economic system and NATO’s and the U.N.’s keeping the world relatively peaceful.
But the value of allies to Americans appears to have shifted between George Washington’s attitude —avoid them — and that of Franklin D. Roosevelt — go all in … eventually.
Donald Heflin is executive director of the Edward R. Murrow Center at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
A version of this article appeared first on The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing the knowledge of researchers, scientists and scholars.
