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America is not leading the world
Never has the country looked less like a leader and more like the head of a faction.
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Never in the decades since the Cold War has the US looked less like a leader of the world and more like the head of a faction, says the writer.
PHOTO: AFP
Stephen Wertheim
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After four years of Donald Trump, President Joe Biden was supposed to restore the United States to a position of global leadership. By many conventional standards of Washington, he has delivered. He anticipated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and adroitly rallied Nato to stand up to it. In Asia, he shored up old alliances, built new ones and fanned China’s economic headwinds. After Israel was attacked, he managed to support it while avoiding all-out regional war.
Yet there is more to global leadership than backing friends and beating back foes. Leaders, in the full sense, do not just remain on top; they solve problems and inspire confidence. Trump barely pretends to offer that kind of leadership on the world stage. But precisely because most US officials do, it is all the more striking where American power stands today. Never in the decades since the Cold War has the US looked less like a leader of the world and more like the head of a faction – reduced to defending its preferred side against increasingly aligned adversaries, as much of the world looks on and wonders why the Americans think they are in charge.
