“The Liberal Leviathan is shuttering up behind walls and a brave new world is out there to be carved by those who dare.” No one sentence in this book could best highlight the crux of the argument that Dr. Sreeram Chaulia presents. Trump is a contradiction to the very values that “Liberal America” has upheld since the World Wars and his contradictory nature has served to provide immense opportunities to emerging powers. In an era of uncertainty, the author thus provides immense clarity into the changing dynamics of the International world order. With the coming of Trump, there is an unprecedented scenario in world politics where emerging powers have a chance of filling the vacuum created by his isolationism. This is the crux of Trumped.
The international order that has been built up under the leadership of past American Presidents, is today being brought down brick by brick by another. Empires have crumbled in the past due to leaders who turned isolationist. Perhaps the best examples of these are Ashoka, Dom Pedro of Brazil and Gorbachev and, according to Chaulia, the American lead world order is suffering the same fate under Trump. His disregard for past US foreign policy and his heightened affinity towards his domestic populace is what defines both him and his policies. Linking most of Trumps actions and statements to his belief in America first, provides a firm understanding into what Trump is.
Trumped brings credence to the fact that the US President’s twin mission is to both deconstruct and unravel the American state apparatus along with breaking the world order to free American people. Trump believes in putting American politics first, but more importantly, he puts the American economy above all. Making America great revolves around making America richer and whether “ally or foe, whoever shells out cash, gets Trump’s, thumbs up.” However, it is not only the money that matters and Chaulia shows how Trump’s allegiance to his domestic populace is a defining factor in his foreign policy. He has supported the state of Israel, along with democracy in Venezuela, in order to lobby either evangelicals or anti-Maduro Venezuelans in the state of Florida respectively.
Most literature disregards and does not bring much focus to emerging powers and rather looks at current great powers in analysing effects of changing international dynamics. Chaulia therefore provides unique perspectives to the Trump problem. By looking at it through the eyes of four major emerging powers he brings emphasis to the fact that the Trump factor has provided a unique opportunity for these middle countries to utilize upon.
India, Turkey, Brazil and Nigeria are all key powers in their neighbourhood and have been strategic partners of the US at one point or the other. Today, Trump has upended the balance in these flourishing relationships and put the onus of adjusting to the same on the leaders of the emerging countries.
Highlighting the difference in their actions and decisions in dealing with this, Chaulia showcases the circumstantial nature of the relationship between Trump’s America and these emerging powers. They have chosen paths unlike each other in an attempt to stay abreast with the changing dynamics. However, though they have at times been pushed into corners in accepting Trump’s dictation of terms, it is clear that they refuse to be pushed around or walked over. In the words of the author,“Emerging powers are difficult customers for any hegemon because they are unwilling to play second fiddle.”This puts emerging powers on a pedestal and it is only through the manoeuvring of the challenges presented to them that they will either emerge victorious or diminished. Each country that the book highlights has a different set of challenges posed to it and only time will tell whether they treat the Trump factor as a bane or boon.
In the chapter on India he portrays extensively the stance that the country is forced to take in facing Trump. He seems almost disappointed by the actions of the populist president. Two things seem to bother the author in this chapter. Firstly, the fact that his actions have at times left the Indian establishment “scratching its head” and secondly the fact that Trump may be fine with a unipolar Asia dominated by China. Though it is clear that Trump’s withdrawal has forced India to look towards self-reliance, Chaulia advocates for something more. He urges India to take cognizance of the fact that the regional dynamics are changing and perhaps diversify its approach to the region. Any likelihood of such a move taking place is debatable. Nonetheless, he seems highly optimistic of the endeavours undertaken by Narendra Modi in both building India’s regional image and countering China.
In Turkey things seem to be quite the contrary. Chaulia has looked at Modi favourably however, he looks at Erdogan very differently. While Modi has tried to keep out of Trump’s bad books, Erdogan placed tremendous faith in the non-judgemental populism of Trump. Becoming openly confrontationist has seen Turkey turn heavily towards Iran and Russia, America and NATO’s key opponents at the moment. By attributing the cause of stagnating Turkey to Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism he emphasizes the need for a change of leadership in Turkey to facilitate the countries rise.
In the case of a third emerging power, Trump has once again overturned previous US foreign policy with Nigeria as well. As has already been highlighted above, Trump cares more for economic gains than anything else. While previous governments condemned human rights violations, Trump was happy to provide the country with arms nonetheless. However, that is seemingly the only upside with the US today. In this aspect, Chaulia provides perspective from both sides of the coin. Trump will provide arms to anyone who shells out money or fights jihadists and yet he is casually racist towards Africans. Nigeria is thus also in a time of uncertainty and is seemingly backed into a corner as well.
Brazil is in another league altogether. If Modi has sought to keep out of Trump’s bad books, Bolsonaro has jumped right into his good books. While Bolsonaro believes he is doing the right thing by riding on Trump, he is in fact laying down Brazilian autonomy at the feet of the US. The author describes the Brazilian far right as lacking independent thinking in their understanding of the relationship with Trump and in a way, almost ridicules them. In this scenario Chaulia prescribes a change in Brazilian policy in moving back to south-south cooperation rather than its current motive of promoting a north-south axis.
This seems to be the only issue with such a book. Advocating changes, prescriptions or providing for possible futuristic scenarios could fall flat with the forever changing decisions of Trump. Professor Chaulia deserves credit for looking at almost every alternative posed to these emerging powers. However, one cannot think of all circumstances or foresee the events of the future. Trumped provides detailed insight into the events of today but how much longer will it still be relevant is highly debatable.
An interesting aspect of this book is that while it focuses on the four countries highlighted above, he also looks at the effects on others in the region. From China, Afghanistan and Pakistan in India’s neighbourhood to Iran and Syria in Turkeys neighbourhood. Trumped therefore focuses on the effect of the Trump factor on most regional actors and diversifies the scope of the book, bringing narratives from multiple recipients of Trump’s blundering foreign policy.
Dr Chaulia paints the current changes in the international order in a very straight forward way. His suggestions and rhetoric bring all focus to the situation at hand, and though Trumped may focus on a multitude of issues, it does not deviate from the main crux of the matter at all which is, that the coming of Trump has drastically affected the world order as we know it. His suggestion that “Trump has dealt the post-cold war liberal international order a hard kick in the solar plexus” perhaps best describes the current scenario.
This in fact brings one to another important aspect of the book. The author’s use of metaphors and innuendos throughout the book brings forth a sense of humour in the way in which he perceives international politics. Not many have looked at China as being akin to an 800 pound gorilla or indeed compared getting votes in the Senate for international endorsement as being equal to boiling the ocean. One would expect a book written by such a renowned scholar to be highly academic. However, the language used and the explanations provided portray the book in a very differently light. It is a book that can be read by all and keeps the reader engrossed in the unique perspectives provided.
