WAshington, Avdiïvka and Gaza: these are three very different theaters of crisis, which nevertheless have one thing in common. The American capital in turmoil, the small Ukrainian town taken on Friday February 16 by the Russian army and the tortured Palestinian enclave are all testing Western credibility and unity. The photography of the moment is dark. Liberal democracies are going through a moment of existential doubt and vulnerability. They appear voiceless in terms of values and struggle to project their strength, although it is not insignificant.
Part of this dismal atmosphere comes from Washington, the central reactor of this Western world contested and challenged by states like China, Russia or Iran. The possibility of a new Trump presidency strikes fear into America’s allies. It reminds Europeans of their responsibilities in matters of collective security. Senator JD Vance (Ohio), a rare Trumpist elected official to reflect on the contours of a foreign policy, issued a warning on February 19 in the Financial Times.
The war in Ukraine? Not an American affair. Europeans “should have the capacity to take on the conflict, but over the decades they have become far too weak. America has been asked to compensate, at enormous cost to its own citizens.”. The history of the Transatlantic Alliance, the extent of mutual interests, the strategic deployment of American forces on the European continent: all of this is swept aside. The calculator covers the history book.
Republican separatism
This threat of American disinterest, of a strategic reorientation, already well underway, towards Asia, is reflected in Congress by the blocking of a new aid package for Ukraine. In the House of Representatives, a minority of a few dozen Republican elected officials, under the leadership of Donald Trump, is blocking the very principle of a vote on this envelope of 60 billion dollars (55.5 billion euros), validated in the Senate.
We do not know, at this time, whether a compromise will be found. But the very fact that he has been evading for four months, on an issue that would have been unanimously bipartisan not long ago, shows the rise of both internal and external separatism within the Grand Old Party. The word is more appropriate than “isolationism”. This current does not want a complete American withdrawal from world affairs, but it no longer feels bound by past commitments, traditional alliances. “America first”and everything else is negotiated, by force or by checkbook.
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