Donald Trump thinks countries that spend too little on their armed forces fully deserve to be torn apart by more virile neighbours. To the alarm of many in Europe and elsewhere, the man who is on course to return to his old haunts and take over from Joe Biden next January recently told his fans that the US would do nothing to protect any foot-dragging NATO member from its attackers. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.”
Appalling as such boorishness may be to those who would prefer a more nuanced approach, Trump is far from being the only North American politician who feels his country should put a stop to the freeloading by foreigners who take it for granted that the United States would always be willing to defend them against their enemies without them having to do anything in return. While Trump had wealthy European countries in mind when he made his unsettling remarks, they could also apply to many others, among them Argentina.
Argentina, along with Australia, Brazil, Japan and a few others, is officially regarded by the US authorities as a “major non-NATO ally,” but when it comes to spending money on the military she is even more of a deadbeat than was Germany before the war in Ukraine reminded that rich country’s leaders that, as has always been the case, the world is a dangerous place in which the weak tend to go to the wall, a truth that is pithily summed up in the Latin expression “vae victis”, or woe to the defeated. Since then, the Germans have upped their military budget and are trying to persuade themselves that having a strong army can be a good thing; naturally enough, this worries fellow Europeans who have long memories.
For what no doubt were selfish reasons, strategists in Washington have always seen Latin America as their own “backyard” and have let it be known that they would shield it from outside predators. If the two-century-old Monroe Doctrine, which for almost half of its life was enforced by the Royal Navy because the United States lacked firepower until two World Wars obliged her to acquire enough of it, is about to be superseded by the Trump Doctrine, in future Argentina will have to fend for herself.
This prospect worries those who have retained an interest in defence. In an article published in La Nación a couple of days ago, the former Army chief Martín Balza pointed out that the current “international context” is “explosive, uncertain and unpredictable,” which meant that the “geopolitical vacuum” Argentina has become could prove tempting to states that would like to satisfy their “economic, expansionist or demographic needs.”
For those accustomed to the notion that Argentina’s main foreign enemy is the United Kingdom, Balza’s warning must seem absurdly exaggerated. After all, for much of the world, overpopulation is no longer a significant problem, what with birth rates plummeting almost everywhere (especially in China) and while Argentina’s natural resources remain appetising enough, it is generally appreciated that these days human capital counts for far more than old-fashioned material assets.
However, this does not mean that the dangers Balza outlined do not exist. The widespread belief that the United States is on the retreat and cannot be relied upon to defend the “rules-based order” that came into being after the demise of the Soviet Union has excited many ambitious people, such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un and the chieftains of a myriad Islamist groupings, who think they should take proper advantage of the opportunities they see opening up.
In any event, the fierce campaign being waged by what are called “autocracies” or “the global south” against the West has less to do with access to fertile farmland, oil, gas, lithium deposits and the like than with the desire to wipe out what was has been left behind by the worldwide cultural, economic and military hegemony that Europe and its offspring enjoyed for a few hundred years, a relatively brief period in history which, many say, is rapidly approaching its end.
The revisionists who want to rearrange the international order to make it more like what it could have been if the Europeans had stayed cooped up in their own homelands do not lack supporters in the West itself. On the contrary, the “fifth column” is huge. It includes most members of the academic and what may be called cultural elites of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and parts of continental Europe who enthusiastically agree that the time has come to “decolonise” just about everything and sideline for good the despised “white supremacists” who they say have lorded it for far too long.
For Argentina, this movement, which is gathering force the world over, could prove dangerous. It is surely only a matter of time before the Chinese and others make a serious attempt to dismantle sovereign states that would not have existed had it not been for European imperialism. Though local nationalists have always insisted that Argentina is a victim of imperialist greed, the truth is that she has always been one of its principal beneficiaries.
Before Putin ordered his troops to give him what was left of Ukraine after he had bitten off chunks a decade earlier, he persuaded himself that he was entitled to send them in because, for a number of what he said were sound historical, ethnic, linguistic and religious reasons, the country was really part of Russia. In other words, he concocted a narrative that, as far as he, many of his compatriots and some friendly Westerners were concerned, justified what others saw as an act of barefaced aggression.
In other parts of the world people who dislike the status quo are also busily inventing their own versions of the way things really ought to be. It would not be at all surprising to see the fervently nationalistic Chinese begin complaining about having been overlooked when the Europeans carved up the Western hemisphere and Oceania and demanded to be given their rightful share of the booty. That would encourage others to do much the same. Indians could complain that it is terribly unfair for almost 1,500,000,000 people to make do with a land which is only slightly larger than the one which is inhabited by a mere 46,000,000 Argentines and insist that something be done about it. The 170,000,000 Bangladeshis, whose country would comfortably fit into Buenos Aires Province, which is twice as big, would surely agree.
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