In the first half of the 1970s, the post-World War II world order – the UN and the liberal principles upon which it was founded, free trade, a world financial system based on the World Bank, the IMF, and other international financial institutions – was still considered beyond reproach in most circles. Hans Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations was a guiding torch, and the US was the unquestioned organizer of the whole operation.
I recently picked up a current international relations textbook, and realized that the whole approach to the subject had changed in the 50 years since I taught the subject at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This is largely because the world order itself has changed, both due to major changes in its members and their approaches to international relations, and because many parts of the old order simply never really functioned as they were supposed to.
Since Donald Trump assumed the presidency for a second term, the US is no longer committed to the previous world order it had played such a major role in creating and running. It has started acting in total contradiction to many of its basic premises, both internationally as well as domestically.
As yet, we do not know how Trump’s trade wars will play out, nor how all his statements about controlling territories that have been under the sovereignty of other states for many years – such as Greenland, the Panama Canal, and even the whole Canadian federation – will end up. As with the trade wars, we do not know whether Trump will actually initiate any of these actions.
BUT EVEN if nothing comes of them, the mere fact that the president of the world’s most powerful state expresses them, and is willing to consider backing up similar ambitions of other states (such as President Vladimir Putin’s plans for Ukraine), is already a destabilizing development. They suggest a return to the sort of cynical power politics, and beggar-thy-neighbor policies, that the post-World War II world order was designed to replace.
Let us not forget that these sorts of politics and policies, and the leaders of certain states, who were not deterred from war as a means for gaining their goals, were blamed for the outbreak of both World War I and World War II.
Trump is a bit of an enigma in this respect. On the one hand, he is reckless in terms of the policies he proposes. Take his plan to relocate some two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which he views as little more than a desirable piece of real estate.
On the other hand, he does not seek wars, but rather negotiated peace agreements, which will bring him (he hopes) a Nobel Peace Prize.
Incidentally, not all of Trump’s ideas and plans are unreasonable or wacky. For example, there is no doubt that free trade, whereby each state produces products in which it has a relative advantage, has not really worked out to the benefit of all states.
The reason is because the system was to have been based on “correct” exchange rates. It was also to have been based on free-market mechanisms within each state. The fact that wages in China are as low as they are, and thus gives China a huge advantage in its trade with North America and Europe, is not based on free-market mechanisms.
The American annual trade deficit, which reached $1.062 trillion in 2023, and to which China contributes handsomely, is no joke, just as the federal budget deficit in the same year was $1.539 trillion. Trump’s desire to reduce these outrageous deficits makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense is how he sets about doing this. In the case of trade, he’s setting across-the-board tariffs; regarding the budget, he’s made drastic cuts primarily in liberal-supported initiatives, such as alternative energy programs, foreign aid abroad, and welfare spending at home.
WHERE DOES Israel stand on these issues? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems inclined to do whatever it takes to please Trump, whether regarding trade or budgetary issues. He hopes this will finally pay off and that Israel will not suffer from the consequences of Trump’s volatile policy moves.
When he was the finance minister in Ariel Sharon’s government in 2003-2005, Netanyahu proved that he knows a thing or two about economics. He certainly does not believe that trade wars and drastic politically-motivated cuts in government spending, that are not based on serious prior analysis or planning, are the way to Make America Great Again.
But Netanyahu does not divulge what he really thinks of Trump’s economic policies, just as he keeps mum about enlisting haredim into the army, or the fact that haredim do not study any secular core studies.
As to Israel’s attitude toward the post-World War II world order, Israel’s position, including Netanyahu’s, is ambivalent. Israel gained its statehood in 1948 on the basis of General Assembly resolution 181, better known as the UN partition plan for Palestine, passed on November 27, 1947. However, over the years, Israel has received a lot of aggravation; for instance, General Assembly resolution 3379 of November 10, 1975, which determined “that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
Today, the only reason that anti-Israel resolutions are regularly defeated in the UN Security Council is because the US vetoes them.
No wonder that the term “Umm Shmum” (Umm is “UN” in Hebrew; Shmum is meant as a derogatory addendum), first coined by David Ben-Gurion, when he served as foreign minister in Moshe Sharett’s government in 1955, to express his contempt of the UN, has turned into a Hebrew idiom.
Over the years, Israel has derived more benefits from the stability brought about by the post-World War II world order than aggravation. Although the complete breakdown of the system is unlikely to serve Israel’s long-term interests, such a breakdown might enable an out-of-the-box solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, with Trump’s blessing.
It might or it might not.
The writer has published both journalistic and academic articles, and several books, on a large variety of subjects including international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994-2010, she worked in the Knesset library and the Knesset Research and Information Center.