‘Statecraft Studies’ in the era of Putin and Trump

Even twenty years ago, the central fact of international and domestic politics was the solidity and permanence of the Western way of life, even under threat (as it often was). The USA had become the world’s only superpower and even if no one, even at the time, seriously believed this was ‘the end of history’, most would have accepted that the collapse of Soviet Communism did, certainly, spell the predominance of Western liberal parliamentary democracy and its values over all other political strands.

In international, transnational and supranational politics, all Western states (this includes western-style states in the Asia-Pacific) were committed to upholding the international rules-based system, respecting international law and treaty obligations. What had been the constant that underpinned the delivery of security to their citizens by all of them was a shared fundamental belief in the need to adhere to the international rules-based system, developed during the Second World War, by the work undertaken by the democratic war leaders, Roosevelt and Churchill.

Their thinking led to the Atlantic Charter of 1941, saw them victorious over the Third Reich, Italy and other fascist nations as well as Japan, and allowed the victors to establish a new world order.

In addition to the concept of a new and authoritative United Nations, ‘armed’ with transnational agencies, a series of further transnational institutions were set up in the post-War period and also given great authority to act to enforce security amongst and between nations. The judicial framework was provided by the establishment of international Tribunals at Nuremberg (deemed the intellectual birthplace of Nazism), and which enshrined in good governance the idea that racial genocide and crimes against humanity were major war crimes which needed to be punished.

These years also saw the creation of NATO, the most effective peace guarantor in modern times, whose Article Five set out the core treaty promise that an attack on one was an attack on all (however hazy the agreed response would be). It was self-evidently sufficiently feared by the USSR to maintain the peace in Europe for the next forty years. Part of this package of international institutions was the European Community/Union which sought to introduce peaceful competition into economic and political activity on the basis that an ‘ever closer union’ of members which would make future wars between them impossible.

The aim was to create a better, peaceful world community as well as work together within states to keep citizens safe from violent disorder. The domestic strength of the great Western democracies lay in their economic strength but also their respected institutions; the separation of powers between legislature, executive and judiciary (so preventing the overreach of any one of them) and the authority given to democratically elected politicians to oversee all elements of government activity, most importantly perhaps those charged with keeping people safe in line with the old Roman adage ‘Salus populi suprema lex’.

Even if the reality often failed to live up to these noble ideals, the direction of travel was clear and the task for political science was seen as relatively straightforward: to describe the institutions of the post-WW2 era, to analyse their workings in ever finer detail – and not to worry about predicting future threats (social science should always be predictive, in my opinion) let alone supporting those not content with the continued running down of defence expenditure in European states. Too often those academics whose work went against the grain of the core beliefs of the academy (believing for example that the best way of securing peace was to prepare for war) were dismissed by their colleagues as were those who regarded secret intelligence as a valuable tool in fighting terrorism. For many academics the secret services of Europe were not the solution but the problem.

Today, however, these old certainties are no more and research concerns must change with them. What being a ‘Western’ state has been called into question by Trump’s second presidency and the MAGA movement in the USA. Trump and his followers have also sown confusion about the meaning of being a NATO member, upholding other international treaty obligations (towards refugees for example) and the rejection of the idea that national sovereignty can be pooled in order to enhance it.

Many voters in Western states seem content with this new state of affairs. In 2016 Britain voted 52:48 per cent to quit the EU, so weakening itself and the EU, much to the pleasure of Vladimir Putin who saw the part the prosperity of the EU had played in the disintegration of the Soviet empire. Far Right populism articulated by politicians who stress their populist strength and credentials can be seen to increasingly challenge the liberal consensus and define the arena in which different views and interests are now contested

The deliberate move away from national and transnational institutionalism, away from consensus and towards adversarial and divisive politics has meant handing power, (including the ability to wage war) to the ‘strong men’ of politics. This big change could be seen very clearly in the rise to power in Russia of Vladimir Putin and the way in which he was able to transform his country into a tool for his personal exercise of power and aggression as he sought to recreate the fiction of a mighty Russian superpower. But it could also be seen in the rise of Donald Trump, most obviously in his second presidency (2025-29); and there are many others who now stalk the world stage as ‘strong men’ inflicting their own wills on their own people and on others, if they possibly can.

These big changes in how states treat each other and how citizens respond to populism and the return of ‘strong men’ must also change the agenda of future political science.

Disclaimer: Views expressed are of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Statecraft Institute.