“History,” Mark Twain once said, “doesn’t repeat itself.  But it often rhymes.”  Given the tumult caused by the rise to power of Donald Trump and the alarming calls for turning inward, turning our back to the rest of the world, and turning on our own, it would behoove the Trump Administration to remember the lessons of history in forging the way ahead.

Let me first state that I don’t believe that Trump is the second coming of Hitler, as some have suggested.[1]  He may demonstrate certain authoritarian tendencies—notably his administration’s contentious relationship with the media and its willingness to stretch the truth or simply lie—which will challenge our democracy and our institutions, but I don’t think he’s out to destroy them.  Don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t trust him, nor do I have faith in the Team of Sycophants he’s assembled (it’s basically an Anti-Justice League of the rich and historically unqualified).  But I also don’t think he means to round up and eliminate different segments of our society.

While I remain deeply worried about the rights and civil liberties of certain domestic groups that he and his running mate have targeted (Muslims, immigrants, and the LGBTQ community, chief among them), I will address the numerous foreign policy concerns that his administration has caused.  I am also deeply troubled by the adversarial tone his administration has struck during the course of the campaign and what it might mean for our economic policy and diplomacy going forward.  As someone who taught 20th-century history a fair few times over the last fifteen years, I can’t help but think of the troubling parallels and precedents over the course of the last century that have alarm bells sounding in my head.

Lessons from World War I: The Globalized World Order is More Fragile than We Think

In the years before 1914, the prevailing wisdom was that the unprecedented growth in trade and globalization would continue unabated in the years to come.  This trade, facilitated by open borders and reduced tariffs, meant that goods flowed more freely than ever before and living standards rose alongside the increasing volumes of products being shipped and sold.  Technology grew at breakneck speed as the automobile and the airplane were born, widespread electrification of urban areas proceeded apace, and breakthroughs in medicine and sanitation meant that people were living longer and better lives.

But the world stumbled into World War I because of a number of cascading factors (misguided nationalism and militarism, poor communication, colonial rivalries, and an arcane alliance system, among other reasons), and trade ground to a halt.  A generation of young men was wiped out.  The Spanish Influenza of 1918-19 killed more people than the actual war, taking advantage of inadequate public health systems drained by the war effort.  The Great War, much more so than its younger brother, was entirely avoidable.  But careless politicians stoked the fires of nationalism, and conflict killed the goose that laid the golden egg of trade.  Years of economic depression followed, and production in many countries didn’t recover until well into the 1920s.  And even then, those economies were fragile, and the world order that had preserved peace over the course of the previous century was irreparably damaged.

The United States has spent the better part of the last 70 years building an international free trading system from which it and the rest of the world have benefitted enormously.  Whether you believe that the Marshall Plan was enacted out of benevolence or narrow self-interest, it spurred economic recovery in Europe and unprecedented growth in America.  We created the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO), to preside over this bonanza.  We got rich, our allies got rich, and even many of our former adversaries came out ahead.  World trade increased eighteen-fold from 1945 to 2014.[2]  And a new, seemingly unending cycle of plenty was upon us.  But lest we forget, the peace and prosperity of the New World Order that emerged after the Cold War are more fragile and tenuous than we imagine.

Lessons from the Inter-War Years: A Time for Diplomacy and a Time for Action

After the Great War, the U.S. turned its back on the rest of the world, leaving a sapped Britain and France to put the pieces of the world order back together.  The world needed our leadership, and we bailed on it, unwilling to bear the economic and emotional burden that leadership of the free world entailed.  And in our absence, imperial Japan invaded Manchuria.  And the world did nothing.  And Hitler marched into the Sudetenland, and yet again the world did nothing.  With American leadership, the League of Nations could have stopped Japan.  And it might have stopped Nazi Germany.  But we were busy with Calvin Coolidge’s business of business.  And Herbert Hoover (the last president before our current president not to have any government or military leadership experience) was only too happy to keep his gaze focused inward and promote American interests at the expense of others.  The Hawley-Smoot Tariff was the outgrowth of this ostrich mentality, and the tariff reprisals that it spawned brought the only recently recovered international resumption of trade to a screeching halt.

The world needed a strong America then, and it needs a strong America now.  Russia, in particular, is a growing threat to international stability, democratic norms, and the post-Cold War order.  It is a once-great power in the death throes of its slow economic and demographic demise, but it remains a danger with its military might and nuclear arsenal and its renewed willingness to violate the international norm that borders are sacrosanct and great powers do not invade their neighbors.  It invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea (to say nothing of Georgia).  This is not a power we should be cozying up to.  Putin is not someone who wants to play by the established rules.  He is desperately trying to draw attention away from his domestic economic failures.  He hopes to cripple NATO by exposing our unwillingness to honor Article V.[3]  And the likelihood is that he will try to do so in one of the Baltic States. It’s why we need to take a strong stand with our allies to stop him there.  Putin is more like Hitler in this regard than Stalin—a leader of a waning power who wants to upset the apple cart and restore the former glory of his once-great nation.  And like Hitler, Putin sees the world in zero-sum terms.  We must be prepared to stand up to him and his expansionist aims.

China, on the other hand, is a potential foe with whom we have common cause—not (ironically) unlike Stalin’s Russia in the Second World War.  Unlike current-day Russia, it is a power on the rise.  Also unlike Russia, China prefers to work largely within the confines of the world order.  Trade is their weapon of choice, and this system must remain intact for it to retain its ascendancy and potency.  Yes, China wants a bigger piece of the pie and their military might is expanding, but they realize all too well that they are fully invested in the continuing success of the current global economic regime.  The US should be strong in resisting Chinese challenges to maritime freedoms in places like the South China Sea but need not unduly antagonize a power that is fully vested in the system over an issue like Taiwan.  We need a strong, stable China committed to upholding the norms and rules of the international system and should not needless antagonize them with a foolish, mutually destructive trade war.

Lessons from the Cold War

If the 45 years of the Cold War taught us anything, it was the value of context in foreign policy.  That we had to understand the full situation and appreciate the stakes involved.  When it was time to be firm, as it was in Berlin during the famous airlift in 1948, we stood firm.  But where we realized we were out of our depth or that our adversaries had greater conviction, as with the Vietnam War, we eventually yielded.  We worked with the Soviets when they were reasonable, such as the SALT and START nuclear agreements while drawing a line in the sand for interests that were non-negotiable, like the presence of nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962.  Some things are simply not worth fighting for.  While others very much are.

Over the course of the next few years, we should be strong in the face of aggression and conciliatory when we have common ground.  We should continue to implement the landmark nuclear deal with Iran, which has been increasingly willing to work with the international order of late.  We should work with China on areas of common interest like the environment and trade policy.  However, we should stand up to neighborhood bullies like Russia when they violate international norms by invading Ukraine and snatching Crimea.  And we should absolutely pledge to stand by the Baltic States against any kind of Russian aggression.  Failure to do so will fracture NATO and endanger the world order that the US has fought so hard to install over the last several decades.

Despite our numerous slips ups and shortcomings, the US is best when it takes the high ground and stands on example in its foreign policy.  We have not always been a nation of saints and have, from time to time, nakedly pursued our own interests.  But when we stand on the side of liberty and popular sovereignty and human rights, we provide a compelling example.  Allying with countries of a similar ilk has only strengthened the power of this example.  These alliances provide much more value than they cost, and they need to be preserved.  We must continue to pursue what is right and just in our foreign policy not because it is easy or inexpensive and without sacrifice, but because it makes the world a safer, more prosperous place.

These are history’s lessons—they have come too dearly and too painfully to be forgotten.  Let’s hope for all our sakes that the Trump Administration has a historian amongst them to appreciate their value.  The stakes are simply too high for us to ignore them.

[1] He’s more like a less-incompetent, more ill-tempered Mussolini.  I kid.  Mostly.

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/international-trade

[3] The principle of collective defense: that an attack on one NATO member constitutes an attack on all members