What’s right with the world today

As the nation celebrates its 245th birthday, despite all the troubles that dominate headlines, it is worth remembering all the good in today’s world — much of it due, at least in part, to the achievements of an American foreign policy that often has been badly flawed and yet, since at least World War II, has done much more net good than bad. The systems of alliances and strategic partnerships we have built with some 60 other countries, most of them like-minded democracies, together with an international economic order that has produced more growth and wealth for a higher fraction of the world’s population than ever before in human history, have undergirded a U.S. grand strategy that remains sound in its basic concept and core vision.

Former President Trump, for all his flaws, did not dismantle most of what a dozen predecessors (six Democrat and six Republican) had built up since 1945. The core elements of the rules-based order are intact. I mean that not as a compliment to Trump, but rather as an observation on the resilience of some elements of the rules-based order — to date, at least. 

The “third wave” of democracy expansion started with Spain and Portugal in the mid-1970s, then took off in Latin America, east Asia and eastern Europe in the 1980s. But it did not stop then or there. About a third or so of African countries, as well as many nations in South and Southeast Asia, by now also have adopted democracy as their form of government. Even during the slippage in global democracy in recent years, there have been positive trends in several important countries to include Indonesia and Pakistan. Statistically, a higher percentage of humanity now lives in countries deemed free or partly free by Freedom House than ever before.

North America has remained a strategic bastion for the United States, providing a strong economic community and a safe haven from any predatory neighbors. The hemisphere has serious problems, to be sure. But its main challenges in the realm of security and safety have to do with transnational crime, rather than geopolitics.

It is true that large parts of Asia and the broader Middle East are not converging toward liberal Western values, including in the realms of democracy, as well as religious and political freedom.  Nonetheless, there is widespread agreement globally about the virtues of some degree of trade, economic cooperation and interdependence. This consensus has not been strong enough to supersede all centrifugal forces tearing at the seams of world order, to be sure. And on the economic front, we are now collectively in need of a new consensus that emphasizes “fair trade” at least as much as “free trade,” and that ensures adequate domestic manufacturing capacity to keep the country resilient in the face of various possible threats. But the areas of accord do provide a strong centripetal force, nonetheless. Despite the gradual “return of history” and great-power competition of the last decade, the world is a far cry from the kind of truly dangerous place that characterized the lead-up to the World Wars last century.

Despite the morasses of the Iraq and Afghanistan missions, and ongoing radicalization of many individuals in the broader Middle East, al Qaeda and ISIS are much weaker than before — at least in terms of their leadership structure, and their ability to plan and carry out complex attacks.  The American homeland has not been hit hard again by terrorism since 9/11. The world has now survived four years of maverick, intentionally disruptive leadership by Trump and a year and a half of COVID-19 without any major trend toward anarchy or growing global violence. 

By 2019, according to Brookings scholar Homi Kharas, half the people on the planet reached a socioeconomic status of at least “middle class” in the respective countries of their citizenship.  Coronavirus likely will set that number back for a time, with an economic downturn of about 5 percent globally estimated for 2020, including serious privation for certain populations, and ripple effects for years to follow. But the anti-poverty accomplishment is still remarkable and will be restored.  

By contrast, just after World War II, only 10 percent of the world’s citizens could make such a claim to relative prosperity. Childhood mortality rates around the world have been cut fivefold since 1960, as one astounding indicator of improved basic health care practices and outcomes.  Nor has the progress slowed in more recent times. According to the Legatum Institute in London, considering 167 countries that together account for more than 99 percent of the world’s population, social and economic indicators improved on balance in 148 of them between 2009 and 2019.

Some are nostalgic for the Cold War, viewing it as a simpler geopolitical time. I am not of that school of thought. The Cold War was not simple or safe until perhaps the very end. It took strong U.S. leadership, combined with effective deterrence, to prevent superpower combat. The United States often erred badly in how it exercised that leadership, sometimes with brutal and tragic results, especially for the peoples and places where Cold War violence was most severe. We should have a mixed view of the Cold War. It was an unsettled and dangerous time, considerably worse than today’s world. Nonetheless, what Bob Kagan calls the “world America made” after World War II — in terms of basic security alliances, economic structures and freedom of the seas and commerce — ultimately held firm against the communist juggernaut that sought to undercut it. 

There is a lot of work to do in building a safer, more prosperous planet at a time of COVID-19, return to great-power strategic competition, global warming, and other major challenges to future peace and development. But there also are strong foundations upon which to build. We should be grateful for those, and seek to protect and preserve them, as we celebrate July 4.

Michael O’Hanlon is senior fellow at Brookings and author of “The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint.”