OPINION:
In his recent Warsaw address, President Trump challenged our allies and Americans to defend Western Civilization. This requires courage and significant commitments of resources for defense, the instruments of soft power and diplomacy. However, it also requires better self-discipline in our domestic affairs, lest we give aid and comfort to our enemies.
The modern West was founded on the Enlightenment principle that the state should serve the people — not the other way around. This requires respect for individual freedom of thought, expression and self-determination and our ability to provide for our needs in free markets.
In modern times, the West has rid itself of monarchies, dictators, fascists and communists who would subjugate the individual. By creating robust international institutions and alliances, it has created a community of nations that live peaceably together.
Mr. Trump is correct to urge our allies to live up to their spending commitments for conventional defense. However, the preservation of the West also requires that we address the underlying nature of threats — ancient fears, tribalism, religious hatred and the base ambitions of autocratic leaders, be they the likes of Vladimir Putin, oligarchs like the Chinese Communist Party or the ideologues of radical Islam.
Their mischief can compromise the common purpose of international institutions and cultivate the forces of uncertainly, suspicion, intolerance and doubt that can undermine our societies from within.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West — encouraged in no small measure by the United States — has operated on the assumption that embracing Russia, China and their remaining client states through more open commerce and cooperation — directly and through international institutions — would gradually liberalize these societies and bring them into the western fold.
However, the tight control leaders of these nations still impose on the personal liberties and the absence of free elections — coupled with aggressive actions like Russia’s threats to cut off natural gas supplies to western Europe and invasion of the Ukraine, and China’s manipulation of World Trade Organization (WTO) market access to export unemployment and its vacillation on the North Korean threat to distract attention from its aggressive designs in the South and East China Sea — illustrate the futility of the “embrace to liberalize” strategy.
It’s high time to get tough with the miscreants.
The West cannot afford unmanaged open trade with these regimes, and cannot rely on diplomacy or be limited by consensus in the WTO, U.N. or other multilateral bodies where our enemies can exercise a veto. The West in common purpose and, if necessary, individual nations like the United States, must act independently to defend their commercial interests — for example, to counter abusive trade practices, combat cyber privacy and secure intellectual property — and to safeguard their security and allies — for example, to address the North Korean nuclear threat and Russian adventurism in the Middle East.
The communications tools offered by the internet, hacking and other digital technologies offer aggressors opportunities to spread disinformation, compromise elections, recruit terrorists from among the disaffected, and generally undermine confidence in the effectiveness and fairness of domestic institutions that express and protect our liberties.
Western politicians, civil society and media must better embrace self-restraint and tolerance lest they become the handmaidens of these malefactors. For example, politicians from both parties who deny the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s election do not change the objective reality of his presidency, but they do hamper U.S. diplomatic efforts abroad and soften the domestic polity for foreign propaganda.
The excessive partisanship and prejudgment about Russian involvement and collaboration with the Trump campaign during the 2016 elections make all the more difficult finding the truth, building adequate safeguards against foreign interference, and ensuring public confidence in our elections.
Derision serves our enemies well.
From Mr. Trump’s Warsaw speech the liberal media seized on the statement “We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes” as racist and white nationalist.
That did much for the ratings and circulation of left-leaning outlets that pander to anti-Trump viewers and readers — and the same for outlets on the right, which then reacted in outrage.
The rancor that follows, however, makes easier for Vladimir Putin, ISIS and others to sow suspicion, enroll new sympathizers and generally weaken western resolve.
Sadly such drama repeats every day in what we hear, read and how we treat each other.
• Peter Morici is an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland, and a national columnist.
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