US Leadership solidifies international peace – Current policies prove retrenchment incentivizes great power wars

American leadership need not mean involvement in endless wars. Past history gives us examples. The Marshall Plan allowed worn-torn allied governments to provide their people with political stability and economic development. NATO was an effort to build Western European unity, end the quarrels that had produced two world wars, and deter Soviet aggression. The United Nations, disappointing in many ways, was a vehicle for broad international efforts against disease, illiteracy and regional wars. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs were designed to facilitate international trade, prevent currency wars and assist in economic development. These initiatives prevented another great power war, achieved a large degree of European reconciliation, and eased the transition for post-colonial countries in Africa and Asia. None would have happened without strong and persistent American leadership. The U.S. negotiated a series of defense treaties with more than 35 nations, designed to deter aggression, that also eased their burden of self-defense and allowed them to place more resources into the reconstruction of their economies. In the Middle East, the Arab States and Israel saw the U.S. as an honest broker, assisting in the negotiation of peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan. During the Obama administration there has been a steady American retreat from world leadership. NATO is far less effective. Allies such as Israel, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, the Baltic States and Iraq are no longer confident of American support. Hence, China, Russia and Iran are asserting hegemonic claims. The world is now torn by devolution and fractionalization. The forces of global and regional cooperation are in disrepair. The United Nations stands helpless against Russian aggression, civil war in Syria and Libya and atrocities by the Islamic State across the Middle East and North Africa; the European Union is facing possible revolts and threats of secession by the United Kingdom and Greece and waning allegiance in much of Europe; and NATO offers Ukraine no more than its good wishes as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military swallows the country bit by bit. Our allies are far from steadfast. Their governments are weaker, and vivid world leaders are hard to find among them. Putin, the insane leaders of the Islamic State and the Iranian mullahs have put fear in the hearts of our allies. Why are these second- and third-rate powers able to intimidate their neighbors far more effectively than did the far more powerful Soviet Union? Our democratic allies in Europe, lacking a clear sense of direction, are ruled by unstable coalitions. Even Germany, perhaps the strongest of our European allies, refuses to confront Putin in his efforts to destabilize Ukraine. When the Obama administration made concession after concession to the Iranians over its nuclear program, our negotiating partners in Europe lost any interest in taking serious steps to keep Iran out of the nuclear club. In the Middle East tribalism and religious fanaticism have left Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen virtually ungovernable. Iraq, left to its won devices by Obama’s withdrawal after American troops sacrificed so much to establish a nascent democracy, is now falling apart. In Egypt, a military regime is trying to forcibly contain the boiling pot that is the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States, feeling abandoned by Obama’s rush to a nuclear agreement with Iran, are sensing the quicksand beneath their feet. Warlordism and radical Islam plague the economically depressed countries of sub-Saharan Africa. A combination of devolution and chaos becomes normal state of affairs absent a strong centripetal leadership. In the last half of the 20th century, America provided that force with persuasion, assistance, assurance and trust. As the Obama administration allows the U.S. to slip into the shadows world politics, the danger of war increases.