US and the world 20 years after 9/11

Twenty years have passed since the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Some of the main questions of analysts and observers these days are how the international system has changed over the past two decades and how US foreign policy has been affected.

While a country's national interests are unlikely to change in just two decades, there is no doubt that something has changed in US international behaviour. The reasons are to be found, above all, in a series of events that have taken place in the international system.

In an era of relatively successful populist choices, it is quite natural to relate US behaviour to its domestic political situation. Many scientific and journalistic analyses have described in detail the alleged democratic regression that is allegedly characterising US domestic politics.

The prevalence of identity politics, the abuse of wedge issues, the disproportionate use of propaganda (and falsehoods) on social media, the rise of authoritarian and demagogic leaders, the clash between extremists and defenders of the status quo, and the consequent inability of the two major parties, Republicans and Democrats, to agree on sensible reforms to address problems of national interest are often cited to explain the isolationist and nationalist attitude of the United States in recent years.

However, there is a tendency to exaggerate the impact of such domestic factors and international factors, less attractive from a media point of view but highly influential in determining a country's international standing, have not always been taken into due account.

The attacks of 11 September only accelerated the impact of some of the major international transformations that began with the end of the Cold War. First, the demise of the Soviet Union was certainly good news from the point of view of advancing democratic values. For NATO countries, however, it meant the disappearance of a clear and easily identifiable threat that had allowed the definition of common goals.

Today, threats are more diffuse, more difficult to identify in a particular state or territory. Their impact can vary greatly, which changes the way they are perceived and the type of alarm they provoke. The most obvious example was the US intervention in Iraq in 2003, which reflected differing approaches between Europeans and Americans on how to combat terrorism. In the face of such threats, it is more difficult to reach agreements, even between allies.

Second, the end of the Cold War intensified a process of globalisation that, after a first phase in the 1990s of great promise of welfare for all, began to show its less pleasant side.

The free movement of goods, people and capital meant not only opportunities but also risks, e.g. new inequalities, evident in the 2008 crisis, or new challenges in terms of reception and integration of people, evident in the frequent migration crises.

Globalisation has led to the emergence of new insecurities that favour the flight of many voters from centrist parties towards more extreme and demagogic solutions. In this sense, several analysts explain populism as a consequence of and reaction against globalisation. Not coincidentally, from an international point of view, populism is often accompanied by an isolationist and nationalist message, presented as the only antidote in an insecure international environment.

For these reasons, when analysing US isolationism in recent times, one cannot resort to domestic explanations alone. As Peter Gourevitch argued more than 40 years ago, the international distribution of political and economic power can have decisive effects on a country's domestic politics, even when it is a superpower like the United States.

Global economic and military pressures narrow the range of options available to a political leader. The tendency for the US to focus more on its national interests is likely to continue in the coming years, whoever the president or party in power is. This is the consequence of a new multipolar environment, in which several powers compete with each other, while none of them has sufficient political and economic clout to impose decisions on the others or to guarantee international security.

It is true that the system of international relations that the United States constructed after the Second World War to provide security for its allies and to contain its rivals remains in place, for example in international organisations such as the UN and NATO.

However, it is also true that the redistribution of power at the international level makes it difficult for the United States to continue to play a leading role in the system. On the one hand, it lacks the resources to do so, for example in Afghanistan, while on the other, its legitimacy is wavering in the face of powers that demand a leading role.

This does not mean that the liberal international order is destined to disappear in the short term, and with it transatlantic relations, free trade or democratic values. Changes of this magnitude may take a long time.

What is certain is that allies and adversaries alike have to prepare for a world in which the United States will increasingly pursue its national interests in a way that can be, at times, unsupportive and aggressive. This will not simply be the consequence of one leader or another, but the effect of global transformations that will be difficult to stop.