Even Trump Believes the U.S. Is the ‘Indispensable Nation’

Even Trump Believes the U.S. Is the ‘Indispensable Nation’
Former President Donald Trump smiles during the presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, in Philadelphia, Penn., Sept.10, 2024 (AP photo by Alex Brandon).

While driving recently through Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, I was greeted by a host of political billboards, some expressing support for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, and others for former President Donald Trump, her Republican rival. Most expressed the campaigns’ official slogans: “Harris/Walz: A New Way Forward” and “Trump: Make America Great Again,” respectively. But the one that jumped out at me was the one that read, “Trump: For World Peace.”

The billboard echoed one of the goals that Trump has promised to fulfill if he returns to the White House. Indeed, at the recent presidential debate, Trump insisted that, if he wins the election, he would bring peace to both Ukraine and Gaza even before he was inaugurated. That claim stands out because it underscores a broader point. It is common to hear Trump described as isolationist and nationalistic, as someone who denigrates U.S. allies and looks askance at a host of international organizations. But he still holds on to a core tenet of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War: the idea of the United States as the indispensable nation.

The phrase comes from former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who first uttered it in the 1990s at the peak of the post-Cold War “unipolar moment” of U.S. global dominance, and she continued to speak about the idea years afterward. It is the notion that solving the world’s greatest challenges, or really any challenge in the world, requires the involvement of the United States.

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