One of the ironies of globalization—the natural phenomenon, not the ideology—is that many who seemingly oppose it are themselves inadvertently furthering it.
Since the advent of the Westphalian nation-state it has been a mantra of traditional statesmanship that “we don’t comment on or interfere in another country’s internal affairs.” Interference happens anyway, of course, but until recently those in power reserved this for clandestine activities while publicly pronouncing their respect for the sacred sovereignty and territorial integrity of their neighbors. We would all wink and look the other way.
Not anymore. Since 2016 some of the most outspoken economic nationalists, anti-federalists, and anti-globalists have openly, actively, and brazenly interjected themselves into the politics of other countries. Thanks to Steve Bannon, a U.S. President has proudly proclaimed his support for the Brexiteers in the United Kingdom’s great domestic debate and had no qualms about identifying his favorite politicians during Britain’s and Israel’s recent selection of prime ministers. To return the favor, British politicians like Nigel Farage have joyfully expressed their preferences in a U.S. presidential election.
It comes as no surprise that former, still unreformed imperialist states like Russia actively pursue strategies to influence elections in other countries, especially real (but fragile) democracies. It’s no secret that Russian money has funded Euroskeptic political parties across Europe, influencing domestic elections as well as those of the European Parliament.
But it’s not just Russia. Many other sovereign states had a stake in the outcome of the recent U.S. elections, be it to protect energy interests, further foreign policy priorities, or spread ideological preferences. The extent to which they may have directly funded and supported individual U.S. politicians is not yet fully known, but the evidence is growing. For example, according to a recent U.S. House Oversight Committee finding, the United Arab Emirates helped write an “America First” energy policy campaign speech for presidential candidate Donald Trump.
When Robert Mueller was asked by Congressman Peter Welch if unreported foreign influence was becoming typical for political campaigns, Mueller bluntly answered: “I hope this is not the new normal, but I fear it is.”
What exactly is The New Normal? It’s too early to say definitively, but the outlines are coming into view. Unilateralism is merging with multilateralism, and vice versa.
On the one hand, anti-globalists disdain organizations like the United Nations and European Union because they inhibit national sovereignty. Yet the same anti-interference advocates have no qualms about openly engaging in the policies and election campaigns of other countries. Your country is not only your business, it’s our business too.
Traditional statesmen of the old school continue to insist that Brexit is a decision for the British people to make. But President Barack Obama openly supported the anti-Brexit vote during a visit to London in the weeks prior to the British referendum when he said, “The UK is at its best when it’s helping to lead a strong European Union.” While the Brits continue to debate the aftermath of the Brexit vote, Phil Bryant, the Republican Governor of Mississippi, recently spoke at a fundraiser for a new U.S.-based organization called “World4Brexit.” Peggy Grande, the Chair of the group and a former assistant to Ronald Reagan, proudly stated, “We are here to support the democratic vote of the British people—they voted to leave the European Union and we want to make this happen.” American politicians appear to have no qualms about taking sides in this internal European issue.
This is not an entirely new phenomenon, of course: influencing the politics of other countries has long been a lucrative—and legal—business. Professional consultants, many of them from the United States, have always collected big fees for advising foreign politicians. In my own country of Latvia, for instance, a former GOP campaign strategist openly advised a local Moscow-friendly party during the last parliamentary election.
But the activity of a group like World4Brexit seems qualitatively different from such discrete cases of pay-to-play lobbying. The group merges the advocacy of current elected U.S. officials (like Bryant) with unelected advisers (like Grande) not merely to influence U.S. policy on Brexit, but to achieve a specific diplomatic outcome for another country. Moreover, the group seems intent on presenting a transnational front to achieve a hard Brexit, even including former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in its marketing materials to suggest his support.
Most significantly, the group justifies its advocacy by way of reference to the “globalist” elite it claims to despise. “George Soros funds every single one of the pro-EU groups in the U.K. and it’s quite legal to do so as long as it is outside of election time,” said Farage upon launching the group. “Why should they be able to do whatever they want and we can’t?” Here is a telling admission on the part of Farage: that those who fear that globalization will concentrate power in capitals like Brussels, Beijing, or Washington are themselves content to globalize world politics in a different way.
If this trend continues, multinational business interests, stateless oligarchs, former officeholders, and other national election “influencers” will be supplemented by governments that openly support, finance, and endorse local parties in elections around the world. The Trump Administration’s support for a hard Brexit, or the Russian government’s covert backing of populist parties in Europe, could be just the beginning. In the future, voters in Europe could choose among parties openly sponsored by the governments of China, the United States, Saudi Arabia, or Russia. Major countries like the United Kingdom, India, and Brazil will each have a favorite U.S. party and a direct stake in the outcome of every election—and could even take their case to American voters directly.
Far-fetched? Maybe. But recent elections have already seen lines of sovereignty blur in unpredictable ways. In 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu all but endorsed Viktor Orban’s re-election in Hungary, as the Israeli Foreign Ministry backed an anti-George Soros campaign that to many observers smacked of anti-Semitism. Orban, in turn, has embraced Israel’s leader openly, seeing in him a kindred spirit. Donald Trump tacitly endorsed Marine Le Pen as the “strongest” candidate in the 2017 French presidential race, the same election that saw Emmanuel Macron tout the last-minute support of Barack Obama. Electoral contests are increasingly overspilling their national boundaries, and the trend shows no signs of abating.
If this process reaches its natural conclusion, the anti-globalists who feared that the UN would emerge as a world government will, in a sense, have achieved their goal. Power will not be centralized in a single global capital run by One World politicians and an army of transnational bureaucrats. Power will be distributed around the world. But it will be controlled by those who have the money, know-how, and resources to nimbly work The New Normal.
In that case, the ultra-nationalists who disdain the cooperation that is encouraged by multinational bodies like the United Nations, IMF, World Bank, and European Union will pursue it through their own political party-based ideological transnationalism. One hand not only helps the other, it also votes for it.
In a way, that’s not so different from The Old Normal we have come to know and loathe. It’ll just be more openly global than ever before.