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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Alex Dibble and Toby Gillis. Donald Trump's first 100 days back in the White House have been nothing if not wave-making across the entire globe. In one recent interview, the leader of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared...
the West as we know it no longer exists. We're exploring that today and looking at it from a historical perspective with our guest Jim Townsend, the former Pentagon official who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for European and NATO policy. Jim, I know that you agree that it is the end of the West as we knew it. What does that mean exactly and is it necessarily a negative thing?
Well, you know, that's an important question, and I guess I should really try to clarify what I meant by that. You know, it's the end of the West as we knew it from the Second World War,
probably up until maybe the 1990s, when certainly in the United States, you could detect a split, not as pronounced as today, but a split of the United States trying to figure out what does it want to do now that the Cold War is over? Are we still the policemen of the world? How much does this liberal world order mean to us? What's our role in this? What's the role of Europe in this?
Who's the enemy that we are linked up against? And so as you go through the various decades since that time, you began to see the U.S. struggle with this and fight with this tendency to go back to the isolationist days where we were all inwardly focused.
And so what we see with Trump today is really an acceleration of a trend line that goes back a couple of decades where the United States tries to figure out what role does it want to have. And right now, the MAGA crowd has taken over in terms of plotting that course, but
where we would be so divorced in a lot of ways from what we've all been building, certainly not just since World War II, but since the end of the Cold War, building out this new world order, you know, the liberal world order. Then suddenly with this accelerant where...
There are other views about that with the Trump people, and they've decided, look, we think we need to go in another direction, not where we were 1945 through 1990, a direction that has more of U.S. interests in mind. We were not bearing everybody's burden. And I never thought I would see that, but we are. Jim, Donald Trump has spoken a fair bit about how he's trying to redress the balance after years of being effectively used by the rest of the West.
Is there any period since the Second World War where that has been the case, where the U.S. has been essentially pillaged by its allies? Well, you know, it depends on your definition of pillage. I mean, I would say in my time working in this industry, beginning on a professional basis in 1982,
I have never felt that we were being pillaged in the sense that we were being taken advantage of. You might talk to some MAGA people who might say that, but my experience has been that we have led the West and led it in such a way that we took on burdens that maybe should have been more properly taken on by others. There certainly is a feeling that as a leader, we have to make some sacrifices because we gain a lot of benefit from that too.
And I think there was, in the end of the day, there was a recognition of that kind of benefit in terms of whether we had bases overseas or we had allies that went with us into battle so many times. We had allies that would advise and counsel us at NATO or other places. We had trade relationships. We had cultural relationships. And the U.S. had a lot of influence. And we consumed a lot of the world's resources, too.
But we were able to work all of this out and work together as the West. And so there was not to me a feeling that we were being pillaged or helpless victims being taken advantage of.
Even in the terms of trade, I think we've all learned over the past couple of months how trading relationships are not what they seem. They reflect other things than some type of game score where there's winners and losers. And, you know, that's not how the world works. And so people who feel that we've been taken advantage of, that we are victims of the EU, the EU is out to... They're our enemy. They're out to screw us, as Trump said. But that's not how...
things worked. And in my experience, I never really saw a period where that happened. Jim, you mentioned allies going into battle with the US over the years. Can you expand a bit on that? How has the US utilized those relationships for its own ends? We would ask allies to go to Iraq or Afghanistan or other things and they would go.
They would go even if it was just with a squadron of planes and they would take casualties, even though those allies felt it was hard to explain to their people why they were doing this. I personally would go to these countries at their embassies in Washington and say, hey, we could sure use your F-16s to participate in the Libya air campaign or Kosovo air campaign during the Balkan days. I mean, there are so many times when the allies...
shed blood for us. And that was not well understood in the United States. But allies, if you want to talk about people feeling victimized, you know, after Iraq, there's some allies that came away from that going, oh my God, why did we do that? So I think we got a lot more from this than American people know. I know because I saw it. And I mourn the time today where we don't have that kind of leadership ability anymore.
And relationship with allies where I can go and say, we need F-16s to go on this mission. And the allies would say, not a problem. And instead, we're going to ask for help here and there. And allies are going to say, well, we'll have to think about it.
You're pretty clear that the US then has benefited more from its role of world leader than it has lost. So in your mind, can you think of a single individual who has set the world back further since the Second World War than Donald Trump? It is absolutely unprecedented.
And just sticking to the West, it's been body blows as the idea of the U.S. commitment, the reliability of the United States, commitment, reliability, two things that is hard to touch, but is there and is an underpinning of a relationship. You know, having body blows to the idea that when the U.S. makes a commitment, we stand by it or the stability that we bring, you can rely on.
The idea that that can be now questioned, it's something that impacts everyone because a lot of nations set off on a course, whether it's their military forces or it's their foreign policy or domestically or trade. They set off on a course based on a commitment made by the United States years ago.
that we always would stand behind. And therefore you invest in dollars or you do these things. And to have that all of a sudden, not just questioned, but absolutely undermined is one of the biggest things to happen since the end of World War II. 1949, we set up NATO. And that was the first time where the United States came out of its isolationist shell, if you will, and made commitments to other nations.
Then that held up until Donald Trump. And suddenly it became a protection racket instead of a, you know, holy commitment made by generations of Americans.
Over the last 80 odd years, Jim, dozens of international diplomatic institutions have been born. I get that those bodies are being forced by Trump to adapt, but within them are interpersonal relationships where politics is almost secondary, isn't it? Isn't it those relationships rather than a temporary leader that ensures the West endures? I agree with that picture that you're drawing.
The foundation and the structure of the West, based on those personal contacts that you're talking about, and there's an array of them, is very solid. But I think what we've seen is, you know, it's like a castle. With a castle, if you get a piece of artillery and you fire enough cannonballs into those walls, those walls start to crumble. At least it shakes up the masonry inside of that castle.
What we're seeing right now is a lot of cannonballs smacking into that castle. But it hasn't tumbled. You're absolutely right. But I think what we're talking about here are not necessarily cannonballs going up against the castle as much as termites that have gotten into the wooden superstructure of that castle.
And these termites are undermining those structures of that castle. So that castle is being able to sustain some of these body blows, but I just don't know how long it's going to be able to sustain it given the superstructure that has been undermined and eaten away by Trump. That's what the termites go after. Trust, it's reliability, it's commitment, honor.
And that's where the termites have done their work. And that means that wall is not as strong as it used to be. And that's what I worry about. Okay. Jim Townsend, thank
Thank you very much. And Jim will be back with us tomorrow when we'll take a look at how the last 100 days is likely actually to impact the future. Who might lead this new world order? And can the US ever regain its position as the country all others fear, respect and follow in equal measure? For now, though, thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow.
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