Trump’s proposals targeting territorial gains may well attest to his ability to plainly assert the following. Contrary to a popular misconception, state sovereignty transcends a formally enshrined status.
The biggest thing President-elect Donal Trump has done since the 5 Novemeber vote are his bombshell claims that include expanding into Canada, purchasing Greenland and retaking the Panama Canal. His baffling offers have spurred official retorts from various governments, a slew of online memes and even a handful of poignant comments.
Most pundits view these jabs as his attempts to emotionally destabilise the counteragents before the full-fledged official negotiation process. This is further evidenced by Trump’s grievances over the underwhelming sales of US fossil fuels in Europe. Part of the explanation, though, is that he is pulling these tricks for entertainment purposes. After all, besides the disturbing tales on the heated rivalry between the superpowers, we all need a healthy dose of chucklesome news stories, the kind richly furnished by Trump. Credit where credit is due.
On the other hand, Trump’s proposals targeting territorial gains may well attest to his ability to put one complex and important idea in simple terms. Contrary to a popular misconception, state sovereignty transcends a formally enshrined status. One’s right to independence entails more than it is normally considered in global politics. It is an emphatically pressing matter in a world where everything, except for the countries’ military capabilities, may just be a hackneyed stereotype.
Sure enough, it would be challenging for us to imagine Canada, Greenland or Mexico joining the US. But in the foreseeable future, we may all be faced with a formidable question. What makes a country a sovereign state unless it can protect its sovereignty? The importance of this looming question is hard to overstate. And the Americans are not the only ones who may start playing this game.
Now that we are witnessing the preexisting norms and rules going out the window, we are hit with the realisation that the sole backbone of each state is its territory. Control over certain territory underpins international relations. After all, territorial integrity is a rather recent idea. History suggests that for centuries, states were fighting over territory. Both the lands and their inhabitants were regarded as a huge asset that was indispensable for new wars, economic prosperity, population growth etc. Up until the mid-20th century, every single war waged in recorded history invariably redrew the state borders.
Moreover, it was not until the early 20th century that the mankind saw the idea of a nation’s right to statehood emerge. The concept was largely coined by the Bolsheviks and the 28th US president, Woodrow Wilson. The rationale behind it was clear as day. Both sides were opposing the great European empires in a bid to erode them. The Bolsheviks were, by the way, hellbent on crushing the Russian Empire.
As for the Americans, a nation’s inalienable right to statehood was a useful tool for expanding their own power. The once-mighty European empires disintegrating into oodles of smaller and weaker countries created considerable leverage for US foreign policy. They eyed bribing their elites into compliance without assuming any responsibility whatsoever for the nations themselves.
To retain their clout, the US and Europe were disseminating the idea that global politics was all about rules as opposed to territory, being fully aware that they were going to be the rule-setters.
In the wake of World War II, Europe’s colonial powers – Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands – were lying in ruins. Their former colonies gained independence, only to be struggling to retain it and rely on either of the two superpowers: the US or the USSR. Only the largest of those countries, China and India, were capable of building their own future, even though both were largely dependent on the generous investment coming from the Soviet Union and then the US. But in the overwhelming majority of cases, formally independent states were not self-sufficient in maintaining their newly found status.
However, these days, as the global majority is shaping up, nearly half the world is fast becoming increasingly sovereign in their decision-making. Part of the reason is that the US leadership keeps eroding the UN along with other international organisations while losing control over its members’ votes. Make no mistake about it, though. They still have enough leverage, as is conspicuously evidenced by the UN voting on some of the issues. But it is clearly shrinking. The biggest force behind this shift is the West’s diminishing capacity to exercise control over the weaker states without taking the responsibility for the future of these nations.
As long as Europe and America had enough resources, they benefited the scenario where the survival of multitudinous nations was fully dependent on external aid whether it be free trade agreements, shared economic zones or the IMF/World Bank relief programmes.
Over time, the neoliberal global economy extended that principle even to seemingly prosperous nations like Canada whose budget revolves around the restrictive US–Canadian economic bonds. There comes a point where one wonders if having the country’s own government institutions makes any sense given the country’s failure to be self-sufficient and self-sustainable.
When that is the case, globally recognised state sovereignty devolves into a bargaining chip the elites are using to haggle with those they are totally dependent on nonetheless. Although Canada may have spent quite a while doing the US bidding, its independence was only in keeping with long-standing rituals of yore. Needless to say, it was extensively milked by the local ruling class as well. But Trump’s recent statements have exposed the preposterous nature of this condition. The profits the US is making off Canada’s independence is getting incrementally outweighed by the country’s investment in it.
We all have to admit that the world being shaped by the rules set up by the fair international organisations is not exactly the trajectory we are taking. That is why the vote of an officially sovereign state will be getting outpriced by a much more valuable asset: its land and its people. We are not nearly close to an era where the global norms and rules are predicated on the voluntary consent of different states. It may even involve creating new international organisations. At the end of the day, the advent of the UN was prompted by the West’ rapacious desire to impose its will in a fairly peaceful manner.
Building a fairer world order will take decades and require a mammoth effort. It can only be built by the states that are truly independent, self-sufficient, and responsible for their policies. Hence the growing need for governments to be able to materially back up their claims to their respective countries and their residents.
Defining and wielding the real sovereignty will be a vital issue of the global political scene in the future. After all, using sovereignty to trade one’s loyalties is losing its relevance. As irony would have it, the US president-elect is already posing this question to one of his country’s closest allies, albeit in a semi-jocular tone.
One’s formal right to independence should be propped up by the material backbone.