What kind (or typology) of power is the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump employing? From dialogue with Russia over Ukraine, the weaponization of tariffs in a neo-mercantilist idiom to goad other countries into directions that he desires, to immigration in the United States, to making Europeans not merely blink but actually cringe and so on. Donald Trump is rejigging world politics, international relations and the very nature of the United States within.
All this cannot happen in a vacuum; it requires power, capabilities and use of both in the way Trump is using. But, to repeat, what kind of power is Trump using? And as a question (in the nature of an aside), what will the world look like if and when Trump succeeds?
On the nature of power that Trump is using first. Scholars and practitioners of politics, international relations and statecraft have dwelt extensively on the nature, use and concept of power. (It maybe that power is a central concept in political science and the practice of politics and international relations). Basically, (and reductively), two major types and typologies of power have been identified: hard and soft power(with some synthesizing the two, crafting a neologism in the process and calling it ‘smart power’).
While hard power, which is quantifiable and measurable – say the number of tanks, missiles, size of armies, military aircraft, and so on that a country has - soft power - roughly the attraction or appeal that a given country has on account of its values, culture and politics – is somewhat subjective. But Trump is neither using hard nor soft power in his new power game that promises to disrupt and rejig international relations and world order.
What is this power?
Can the proverbial finger be placed on this?
Trump creating paradigm shift
It would appear that in Trump’s schema, power like money is fungible. Fungibility refers to the feature or characteristic of a good that be interchanged with another of the same kind. Even though this definition of fungibility might not neatly apply to power but the great sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theory which views power as capital which can be transformed into other forms of power may encapsulate (in the contextual setting of social interactions).
Trump’s approach toward the use of power within and without the United States. Trump is not then upending interstate relations and world order but he is creating a paradigm shift in a strict Kuhnian sense - with his use of American power.
The reverberations of this approach will not merely be felt in America but across the world. In this schema, the post war 1945 world order may be in its death throes with Trump crafting a new one from its detritus.
While all countries of the world will be affected with this paradigm shift, the heat will be more pronounced in Europe. More in the nature of (to twist Richard Rosecrance’s phrase) a ‘trading superstate’ where sovereignty was pooled after the second Great War, and where core Europe - France and Germany - buried the hatchet complemented by the Benelux countries, Europe morphed into a large free trade zone.
Defence Shield for European Union
As Europe ‘widened’ and ‘deepened’ its security and defence needs were - in the main outsourced to the United States. While this was not exactly ‘free riding’, but under the United State’s defence shield and extended deterrence, Europe thrived into a union of states.
Now, with Donald Trump employing US power the way he is (the closest analogy, initially employed by Tom Friedman of the New York Times in favor of his globalist thesis and with reference to financial markets, may be that of Tyrannosaurus Rex but this time around with a different twist, tone and tenor), Europe appears to face its moment of reckoning.
This use of power is not ‘smart power’; but what can be said is that Trump is using American power smartly. How? In terms of the accoutrements and nature of US power, Trump is actually not using it. But by mere hinting of its use, (the analogy here might be T Rex merely twisting its tail and opening its mouth), the entire world is in rapt attention.
Power in this schema is not used and thereby not depleted but actually conserved. The neatness of the approach lies in the fact that Trump by virtue of this approach is getting precisely what he wants.
Impact on International Relations
What are the consequences of this type of use of power? What will the world and its politics look like?
Consider the European Union first. With its politics and political economy in disarray, the EU will find it incredibly difficult to forge a common defence and security policy. But forge they must with Trump around. His omissions and commissions with respect to Europe and Russia leaves no other choice for the Europeans.
Given the atypical use of power by Trump, his approach toward Europe (and other countries) can be subsumed under the broad rubric of compellance. The EU then will be a different ‘beast’ so to speak - diverting resources to its defence and security needs in the Trumpian era.
Similarly, Trump’s ‘opening to Russia’ (where even commercial interests and business are on the table) which appears to be a loose inversion of Nixon’s opening of China, puts pressure on China by weaning off its major ally, Russia, from China’s orbit.
Of course, as Palmerston has aptly stated that ,’nations have no permanent allies but only permanent interests’, this ‘weaning off’ would not mean Russia drifting away from China. But, in the short term, China will be ‘all ears’ and adapting its grand strategy in view of the latest, unprecedented trends and developments.
A New World Order in 2025
Cumulatively, the major impact will be on the so-called liberal post second world war order. While world orders mutate and change, especially when ideas, ideologies mesh with events at a fast pace, Trump’s ‘insurgent disruption’ will, in all likelihood, throw a spanner into the works of the 1945 world order.
In other words then, Trump is crafting a new world order – not rhetorically but in real terms. But will this new paradigm hold after four years, when Trump will – as per US constitutional law - have to go?
And will the world be a better and a fairer place with the institutionalization of Trump's paradigm shift? Or is the period 2025-2029 just a disruptive interlude - with things reverting to norm after that? With respect to the former, it is here that Trump’s domestic policy, political and ideational agenda comes into play.
Shorn of accretions, Trump is, within America, creating a new politico, ideational and institutional framework that makes it difficult for any force other than the incumbent to revert to the past. Trump’s paradigm altering disruption will then be reified.
A new world order is getting crystallized. Year 2025 will go in history books as the date that this happened. As for whether the world will be a fairer and a better place, no one really knows. This remains in the mists of the ‘unknown unknown’.
What can, however, be said with certainty is that Trump contrary to media caricatures is a sharp and an intelligent man. By shaking off convention, hackneyed themes and strategies, he is surely disrupting world politics, international relations and international political economy.
The hope is that this disruption redounds not only for the ‘good’ of America but the world at large!
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