Trump’s rhetoric has become increasingly combative toward former allies.
For instance, he has hinted at ambitions involving Panama, and Greenland.
Or making Canada a US state.
That approach has some advantages.
It might secure concessions, showcase America’s dominance, and resonate with nationalist and power-seeking voters at home.
But long term it diminishes American global influence.
This article explains why.
Machiavellian Leadership Principles
We long emphasized on this website that dominant behavior ≠ power.
They overlap most certainly.
But they’re not the same.
And we also made the point that strategy beats dominant behavior.
Including a video here:
Lucio: 3 examples of strategy beating dominance in everyday life
U.S. foreign policy, past and present, provides a good example of this principle.
Let’s dig deeper:
1. Keep Your Enemies Close… & Hide Your Guns
Principle:
⚖️The higher the tension, the more their motivation and preparation
Your enemies shouldn’t even know you’re an enemy.
Think about it, if you call the North Korean leader ‘Rocket Man’ and threaten China, are they more likely to ally and prepare, or chill and
This is especially true for dictators.
Dictators already have maximum power. Without threats, they focus on maximizing power, squashing dissent, siphoning off money, and generally keeping their countries poor and weak (de Mesquita, 2003).
But external threats are a threat to their rule -and life-.
And an enemy galvanized internal support into productive endeavors.
You don’t want them productive.
You want them fat and chill.
Keep them close, hide your guns, and pretend you’re friendly.
2. Coddle Your Subjects to Keep Them Happy… And Dependent
The effective Machiavellian top dog doesn’t bully the small dogs.
Instead, he coddles the small dogs to keep them content, submissive, and dependent.
Why?
Because the small dog who feels safe under the big dog protection has no incentive to empower himself.
Instead, his incentive is to suck up and sidle-up to the big dog.
But the incentives invert when the big dog turns on the small dog.
In one sentence:
Small dogs stay obedient and fragmented under the top dog’s lead, but seek power in unity to defend against a dangerous big dog.
This is basic social dynamics, transferred almost 1:1 to global politics.
Followers and smaller players gladly follow a more powerful but benevolent leaders -and he stays in charge for as long as he wishes
3. Combine Dominance & Prestige For Maximum Effect
Crucially, the little dogs also look up to a protective and friendly top dog.
After all, it makes sense: the big dog is a magnanimous giver.
He pulls up the smaller dogs, and makes everyone better for it.
And we’re wired to love powerful but magnanimous men who lead for us all.
The friendly top dog is BOTH dominant and prestigious
Psychology research shows us that dominance and prestige are two different routes to status and influence.
They’re both powerful.
But there is a key difference:
- Dominance browbeats others into compliance -but does not make others agree with you.
- Prestige makes others WANT to emulate and follow you -it gets ‘buy in’-
Thus, prestige is the only approach that affects true change.
Of course, it may be better to be both.
It’s no coincidence that one of our first articles was ‘mix power with warmth‘, which reflects a similar approach.
It’s also similar to what a smart American strategist said a long time ago:
Speak softly and carry a big stick
And that’s what the US has long done.
Prestige allowed US cultural hegemony
Joseph Henrich explains that prestige evolved to facilitate group learning.
Such as, the lower-status individuals look up and follow the most skilled and higher-status members to learn from them.
This perspective also sheds light on the dynamics of soft power.
It may not be a coincidence that America’s power projection and exports greatly benefited from soft power and cultural hegemony.
America was a prestigious leader.
And everyone was happy to learn from, buy from, and be more American.
US-European Relations: Good Leader-Happy Followers
The USA has led the West with ‘benevolent leadership’ since WWII. The win-win lasted because it’s good for all
Until now US and Europe -plus Japan and South Korea- had a relationship of prestigious top dog, and a pack of smaller-sized happy followers.
Cooperative and win-win USA policies started with the Marshall Plan.
It kept key European and Asian allies friendly, aligned, and happy with America’s leadership and military ‘protection’.
This fostered a surge in American cultural export and trade that benefited both sides.
And it solidified America’s leadership of the West -and the free world-.
4. Keep your friends close, to keep your enemies isolated
For decades America spoke softly to Europe, and put the big stick on the service of its allies.
It was an incredibly effective strategy.
Tending and befriending the wealthiest nations in the world, America effectively isolated and disempowered its few other enemies.
It’s another key strategy we champion on this website:
Make friends, not enemies.
It’s not necessarily to be ‘nice’, albeit that’s also a bonus for us, but because it works.
When you have many friends and few enemies, you can focus your undivided attention -and firepower- on them.
Additionally, you can enlist the support of your allies.
That’s exactly what NATO did.
It’s not surprising that URSS was doomed to lose.
The US combined the wealthiest and most powerful countries into one single alliance.
A web of powerful allies is what maintains long-term global hegemony
And now the Machiavellian bent of this approach:
🐍 5. Keep your friends close, to keep them divided
US foreign policy had a second crucial advantage:
It kept Europe fragmented.
Why worry about being friends with historical competitors like France and Germany, when you can sidle up to the US?
Plus, there was no need.
In the world of complex and slow-moving international politics, things change only when they absolutely must.
The European project drudged along at snail speed because it never had to move quicker.
What for?
America was there.
Who needs a common EU army when you have US-led NATO protecting you?
Edit:
After writing this article, The Routledge Handbook of Great Power Competition confirmed to me this was a premeditated move indeed:
In the early 1990s, eforts to “Europeanize” European defense gained steam.
France wanted to turn the Western European Union (WEU), the nascent military arm of the European Community (the forerunner of the European Union), into a full-fedged security organization. Policymakers in Washington viewed this as an attempt to lever the Americans out of Europe.
The Clinton administration thus decided that NATO (in which the USA played the dominant role) ought to remain the lynchpin of European security.
In other words, NATO enlargement served two central objectives of American foreign policy: to promote democracy and to sustain US infuence over European security and political affairs (Layne 2000; Shifrinson 2020; Schake 1998
But things may be changing…
Over-Dominance In Global Politics
Now let’s take a look at contemporary US politics.
As mentioned, it’s in many ways the opposite of what the US has done for decades.
But it’s not all bad.
Over-dominance, which we also call ‘value-taking dominance’ and in common parlance overlaps with ‘bullying’, has pros and cons.
The dominance boost
The pros include:
- Faster compliance gaining, no need for influence and any semblance of democracy and fairness
- Send a stronger message: a single act of dominance, unopposed, instantly establishes you as the top dog
- Grab a larger portion of the pie, since you don’t have to pretend to be ‘fair’ to remain friendly and prestigious, follow the law of the jungle, and dictate the terms
- Momentarily boosts internal cooperation, especially among power-sensitive and nationalists, as the aggressive stance heightens inter-group competition
- Psychic and hormonal benefits
As little as feelings matter to a good Machiavellian, over-dominance makes the big dog feel strong and omnipotent.
In the short term, it also boosts testosterone, leading to a short-term reinforcing cycle of increasing bullying and increasing spoils.
Unfortunately, this may be one of humanity’s biggest bugs, but pro-social dominance does not have nearly the same endorphin-releasing effects.
- Internal politics boost
Aggressive leaders may also gain some points at home.
Supporters enjoy America’s dominance because they project their identity into the nation/tribe.
And they ‘borrow’ America’s dominance to boost their own self-esteem and pride.
It’s a costly shortcut to confidence, though.
Psychological power-borrowing from the group replaces (a lack of) personal achievements.
And this is why we encourage men to develop themselves as individuals first, rather than tribe/group-members.
- Dominate against divided smaller dogs, including your former allies
The little dogs are still shell-shocked, still fragmented and extra disempowered
The costs of over-dominance
In an admittedly more moralistic take, Simon Sinek’s best-seller Leaders Eat Last says that selfish leaders are ‘betraying us all’.
I agree: it’s a dereliction of leadership responsibilities.
But let’s analyze the dynamics more dispassionately.
By turning the big stick on its allies, America first loses prestige.
Only other bullies admire value-taking dominance -and nobody likes it when it’s used to take from them-.
And it would soon start losing dominance as well.
Focusing on the European effects:
- Top dog can’t rely on small dogs anymore to isolate and sanction enemies.
Ie.: If the US wants to sanction China but United Europe doesn’t, China maintains a large export market
- Small dogs may start biting back -hopefully not, but politicians’ first main task internationally must be to avoid lose-lose-
- Small dogs coalesce into an opposing pack
While the US could pressure a single EU state -ie.: Denmark-, it can’t with United Europe
Aggressive American foreign policy forces Europe to unite
Domineering Alphas Bully Small Dogs… And Coalesce Them Into A Pack of Enemies
The former benevolent leader turning aggressive is a shocking wake-up call.
As the lost puppies look around, the mistake becomes clear: how can you guarantee a lone big dog to always remain friend?
And the solution also becomes clear: let’s ally, and become a top dog through small-dog unity.
That’s how hyenas outplay lions.
And unlike hyenas, European nations can unite into a whole, forming a big top dog themselves.
This is exactly what power dynamics would predict.
So I was glad, but not surprised, to see this at play:
European leaders vow stronger European unity and self-reliance after Trump’s election
A new global superpower must not necessarily antagonize the US.
Hopefully and likely it won’t -what a lose-lose tragedy that’d be-.
But nonetheless, a strong united Europe is a comparative loss of global influence for the US.
It’s simple math: one single top player has outsized influence on the world.
But global influence dilutes as the number of top players increases.
Why leaders’ over-dominance is lose-lose
First off, the leader pays a long-term price.
Just like financial borrowing, over-dominance boosts short-term power creating a long-term liability.
The costs of value-taking dominance include the loss of prestige, allies, soft power, influence, etc.
Most damning, several experiments show that a prestigious pro-social leader makes the pie bigger for all because he fosters cooperation from all.
But an overly dominant leader does the opposite.
Over-dominance and uncooperativeness by the leader make the pie smaller for all.
It undermines global cooperation, including trade and organized responses to global issues -a price humanity all, pays-.
We all go backward when civilization regresses into tribalistic squabbles, undoing millennia of progress and cooperation.
I’m confident cooperation will eventually resume.
But even momentary setbacks cost us momentum loss.
But just like with financial borrowing, dark-triad leaders don’t care if future generations pay the costs.
Some good may come out of this all
Overall, it’s better for all when leaders are prestigious.
And that’s also true for world politics.
But… There may be silver linings.
1. Europe stops being a dependent, disempowered puppy
Personally, I always felt that European reliance on US ‘protection’ was bad both practically, ethically, and psychologically.
First, if you can’t protect yourself, it’s your duty to look for ways.
And if you have the means to, it’s embarrassing and unethical to expect ‘help’.
It’s mentally disempowering for you, and it’s a beggar and value-taker approach towards the world.
2. Shared power provides checks and balances
And you never depend on a single country to elect the right people, or to keep moving the world forward.
Speaking of which:
3. Shared power is an insurance policy for humanity
2 leading powerhouses and beacons of freedom are better than 1. And if more join, all the merrier
A wake-up call may shake Europe from its torpor.
And nudge it back to being a leading powerhouse of progress and innovation.
That’s great news for the world: more superpowers advancing civilization equals more pulling power for humanity.
And an insurance policy in case an engine sputters -as they all do, over the long term-.
4. Local politics negotiated for win-win
Politically, Europe may be better placed to improve local relations.
A European war for the US is a distance issue in a foreign land.
And an opportunity to export gas, and weaken Russia.
But a lone Europe has more incentive to maintain its win-win.
It was a colossal geo-political mistake to allow US ‘defensive’ missiles in Poland, or push for extended NATO membership -and Merkel knew that-.
A smarter and win-win foreign policy would have prevented a war, with much to gain for Europe, Russia, and the human race.
Also see:
