There is an even bigger threat to America\u2019s global security in 2024 than the potential reelection of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Our democratic allies in Europe and Asia watch with grim fascination<\/a> \u2014 and our Russian and Chinese adversaries with satisfaction \u2014 as uber-partisan U.S. politics paralyze the American government.<\/p>\n Even more than fear of Trump, European leaders are openly voicing their worries about a superpower whose foreign policies are doomed to remain dysfunctional \u2014 no matter who wins in 2024.<\/p>\n Washington constantly seems on a deadline to prevent a GOP-led government shutdown \u2014 including last week \u2014 over federal funding bills in Congress. Confirmations of administration picks for top military posts or key ambassadorships are blocked interminably by MAGA members\u2019 maneuvers.<\/p>\n Most disturbing, the GOP has tied aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan<\/a> \u2014 three arenas of huge American concern where war is ongoing or threatens to erupt \u2014 to resolving the southern border crisis, one of the nation\u2019s most divisive issues. MAGA House radicals appear ready to reject a likely bipartisan Senate compromise on border reform, preferring to block any coherent foreign policy.<\/p>\n Who can trust a U.S. government that behaves this irresponsibly?<\/p>\n Like Gulliver, the United States and its government have been hog-tied by small-sized, small-minded Lilliputians indifferent to anything but 2024 campaign ambitions and cues from the divider-in-chief<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was instructive to watch as global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos<\/a>, Switzerland, wrestled last week with how to cope with a global superpower that is self-destructing. While pundits often deride the annual Davos meeting of heads of state, cabinet ministers, and CEOs as the playground of \u201cglobal elites,\u201d it provides an excellent barometer of international trends, as I found in the 13 years I attended.<\/p>\n Conservative Polish President Andrzej Duda, whom former President Trump praised when he visited Warsaw in 2019, refused to be drawn out when asked at a panel discussion<\/a> whether he worried about another Trump victory. He stressed that Poland would work with any U.S. leader chosen in \u201ca normal democratic election.\u201d<\/p>\n But then Duda got down to what worried him most, openly expressing concern over unrest after the last U.S. presidential election. \u201cThat was a situation where potential stability in the United States could be upset,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is something we could consider dangerous.\u201d He added that Poland would like to see \u201ccalm\u201d U.S. elections.<\/p>\n Imagine if Joe Biden wins a close 2024 election and Trump again refuses the results or ignites violence during the balloting. Or if Biden takes office, but MAGA representatives in a divided Congress continue to paralyze the government. Or if Trump wins, but as promised becomes a \u201cdictator\u201d on Day One and focuses his presidency on retribution and political purges.<\/p>\n Any of these scenarios would provide the coup de gr\u00e2ce to America\u2019s historic place as the world\u2019s most stable democracy. Any of them would destroy the U.S. capacity to adequately protect its citizens from the security challenges that loom \u2014 as a powerful China and a revengeful (if wounded) Russia pursue larger global roles at the expense of a flailing United States.<\/p>\n Even Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, waiting with the rest of the world to see if Congress will betray Kyiv by refusing to approve additional military aid, expressed more worry about U.S. dysfunction than who is chosen in 2024. \u201cWhatever choice Americans make,\u201d he said at the same Davos panel, \u201cwe will work with that reality. But frankly, I am more concerned with what happens on Day One.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really matters that the U.S. system remains focused, that America will not drown into domestic fights and spend political resources on fixing entirely interparty issues because America is important for global stability, and America will have to remain focused on global issues, of which Ukraine is one.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, Trump and his America First acolytes have made clear they don\u2019t want to focus on global issues<\/a>. The sad truth is that U.S. governmental dysfunction and internecine domestic warfare are key to Trump\u2019s operating mode.<\/p>\n When Poland\u2019s Duda spoke at Davos of wanting \u201cmore U.S. in a united Europe\u201d and \u201cmore transatlantic cooperation in security, economic as well as military,\u201d he must have known that Trump wants the opposite.<\/p>\n On Jan. 9, a top European Union official revealed that Trump had told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a meeting in 2020 that \u201cNATO is dead<\/a>\u201d and \u201cif Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and to support you.\u201d The official, Thierry Breton, was present at the meeting.<\/p>\n Trump remains falsely convinced that NATO somehow owes America hundreds of millions of dollars. He is also furious that some members fail to meet NATO\u2019s goal of spending at least 2% of their GDP yearly on defense.<\/p>\n If strengthening NATO were Trump\u2019s goal, he could continue to press individual members to increase their defense budgets, as many are now doing. Never has NATO been more essential to push back against the club of dictatorships \u2014 Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran \u2014 that are testing the West in Ukraine and in Asia.<\/p>\n However, Trump has no such intention. His former national security adviser, John Bolton, told the New York Times that \u201cthere is no doubt in my mind\u201d that Trump would withdraw the United States from NATO in a second term.<\/p>\n \u201cDictators are making coalitions,\u201d warned the exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya at Davos, pleading against the appeasement of despots and urging more U.S. aid for Kyiv. She knows whereof she speaks: Vladimir Putin has essentially annexed her country, as he wishes to do with neighboring Ukraine.<\/p>\n But Trump has no interest in an alliance with European democracies or in helping Ukraine win. He has made clear he prefers to deal directly with dictators such as Putin. Never mind that the Russian leader, along with China\u2019s Xi Jinping, North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un, and Iran\u2019s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ran rings around Trump when he held power.<\/p>\n Even as European leaders fretted over U.S. dysfunction at Davos, a huge Chinese delegation spread out to present global south nations with an alternative governmental model to dysfunctional democracy.<\/p>\n Despite all the economic and military prowess of the United States, the Trump-led MAGA acolytes seem determined to prove the Chinese right.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n (Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a>. Readers may write to her at: Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101, or by email at trubin@phillynews.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n