Might makes right.

"The strong do as they can, the weak suffer as they must." 

Athenians to the Melians, 416 BC, as described by Athenian historian Thucydides. 

The Aegean island of Melos was neutral in the war between Athens and Sparta. Larger and stronger Athens approached Melos' leaders and demanded large annual tributes of wheat and silver, and said to pay up or be utterly destroyed. Melian leaders said this was immoral and unjust. We hurt nobody. Leave us be. Athens said it wasn't a matter of morality, it was a matter of strength. Melos resisted. Athens killed their men and enslaved their women and children.

We are at a moment of profound change in American foreign policy. 

America announced a change in values. In post-WWII world, America presented itself to the world as having a value system of good versus evil, of friends versus opponents. We told ourselves and the world that we were fighting for righteous causes: freedom, democracy, peace, fairness, prosperity, and free markets. We asked the blessing of God. We were the good guys.

It is different now. America isn't claiming to act on moral values. They are irrelevant. We are being selfish and realistic. America is open to partnering with undemocratic, unfree, unpeaceful, corrupt governments to achieve our interests, which include getting peace on any terms that will bring peace, and getting mineral rights from a country under duress.

There is a good argument that the U.S. has always been self-deluded and hypocritical in our foreign policy. We have always been looking out for number one. We dressed up self-interest under a cloak of righteousness. This painting by John Singer Sargent is in the main hallway at Harvard's Widener Library. I scoffed at it every time I passed it in the late 1960s as the Vietnam War was underway, but it was painted and displayed in dead earnest:

Inscription: They crossed the sea crusaders keen to help nations battling in a righteous cause.

World Wars One and Two, we told ourselves and the world, were fought to save democracy from German aggression. The Korean War was fought to stop communism. We were protecting Vietnam from being another falling domino of communism. Our interventions in Latin America were to protect private property and capitalism. We intervened in Iraq first to protect innocent Kuwait and then to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. We fund the United Nations to promote peace and international law. We fund foreign aid because we are good guys, feeding the poor, healing the sick. We are the Mercy Ship people.

There is truth in all of it, and hypocrisy, too. The hypocrisy is the point of the moral basis for our actions. We said and believed we were acting out of good, moral intentions. Allies thought we were a fixed point of reliability and consistency. We had beliefs. We had an ideology. Therefore, we would pay our bills, obey treaties, and defend an invaded democracy against an autocratic aggressor, even if it cost America something.

No longer. In the "dog-eat-dog" world, people, businesses, and countries act out of unsentimental self-interest. Trump announced that the U.S. is under new management with new policies. “My administration is making a decisive break with the foreign policy failures of the past administration, and frankly the past.” There is no right or wrong nor any rules of the game; only ability to take what you want if you have the power.

The U.S has shown itself to be an unreliable ally in matters of war and peace and, with the tariff announcements, an unreliable trading partner. That does not mean others cannot work with the U.S. They can, but there is a new north star. The U.S will do whatever transaction best advantages it at any given moment. There is no trust of consistency and honor. 

In our lives we know how to deal with unreliable people. We demand prepayment. We file liens in advance of doing work. We audit. We presume bad intentions. We try never to let ourselves get exposed. It is why we much prefer to work with known people and organizations with a track record of reliable service and partnership.

Trump is saying and demonstrating that nobody can trust us anymore. There is value in being trustworthy. This will cost us.

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