Mitch McConnell: Der Preis des amerikanischen Rückzugs

[SS from essay by Mitch McConnell, Senator from Kentucky and served as U.S. Senate Republican Leader from 2007 through 2024.]

When he begins his second term as president, Donald Trump will inherit a world far more hostile to U.S. interests than the one he left behind four years ago. China has intensified its efforts to expand its military, political, and economic influence worldwide. Russia is fighting a brutal and unjustified war in Ukraine. Iran remains undeterred in its campaign to destroy Israel, dominate the Middle East, and develop a nuclear weapons capability. And these three U.S. adversaries, along with North Korea, are now working together more closely than ever to undermine the U.S.-led order that has underpinned Western peace and prosperity for nearly a century.

The Biden administration sought to manage these threats through engagement and accommodation. But today’s revanchist powers do not seek deeper integration with the existing international order; they reject its very basis. They draw strength from American weakness, and their appetite for hegemony has only grown with the eating.

Mitch’s domestic conduct aside, he was pretty progressive for his time when first entering politics and tends to have solid takes on foreign policy.

>*Even though the competition with China and* [*Russia*](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/russiahttps://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/russia) *is a global challenge, Trump will no doubt hear from some that he should prioritize a single theater and downgrade U.S. interests and commitments elsewhere. Most of these voices will argue for focusing on Asia at the expense of interests in Europe or the Middle East. Such thinking is commonplace among both isolationist conservatives who indulge the fantasy of “Fortress America” and progressive liberals who mistake internationalism for an end in itself.*

But considering how Republicans have voiced their desire for Russia to turn on China, along with Trump’s focus on Canada, Greenland and to a lesser extent [Iceland](https://www.icelandreview.com/news/politics/trump-expresses-interest-in-iceland-during-call-with-pm/) (visited by Pence and Pompeo), I’m beginning to wonder if the American right doesn’t want to acquiesce to Russia so much as make sanctions relief conditional upon Putin breaking up with Xi/China.

That would also raise Russia’s threat level toward Europe, potentially forcing them to divert their focus away from the North-Atlantic such that the US won’t need to compete with the EU for influence over Greenland-Iceland (the islands are essentially a strategic unit) and also make it harder for Canada to shift some of its dependencies on the US over to Western Europe(namely France and the UK).

Until high level US officials start penning articles titled “The high price of cheap goods that could be sourced elsewhere.” or “Biding time with best fake smiles”, things aren’t getting serious. There is no primacy to be had if there’s a giant parasite latched on to you, and there’s a reason why it keeps trying to latch on when there are attempts to flick off.

The USSR had good graces to not be so, this one takes pride in it.