An American in Munich
Americans that travelled abroad between 2002 and 2008 became accustomed to receiving unsolicited criticism about the United States. This could happen whether they were working, studying, or having a drink on the beach. I was in the Peace Corps when the Iraq War began and spent a lot of time listening patiently to critiques about my home country that ranged from polite to expletive-filled.
Fast forward to 2017 and I was preparing to attend the Munich Security Conference as a Munich Young Leader. Given the tumultuous nature of both President Trump and his first month in office, I expected to arrive in Germany and be inundated with negative comments about the United States. What happened was quite different; people expressed worry, confusion, but most of all, empathy.
People were asking how Americans were coping in the face of this unprecedented turmoil and expressing genuine concern for marginalized groups in the United States. To many attendees, Brexit and the appeal of racist populists in other Western countries demonstrated that the U.S. election was part of a trend, rather than an isolated phenomenon. Judgment was reserved for President Trump and his inner circle, as opposed to all Americans.
Over the course of my four days in Munich, my fellow Young Leaders and I had fascinating roundtable discussions with senior officials from around the world. Amongst ourselves, we engaged in the kind of in-depth, overly-technical debates adored by policy wonks the world over. Still, I could not shake the feeling that the support that seemed to be directed at Americans would not last forever.
Secretary of Defense Mattis’ speech to the Conference was meant to reassure European Allies, but its brevity relegated it to the land of box-checking exercises. Vice President Pence’s speech hit similar reassuring notes, but repeated use of terms like “freedom” and “evil” left the audience with a eerie feeling of déjà vu. Neither leader took questions. Secretary of Homeland Security Kelly also spoke for the Administration. His defense of the Trump Administration’s disastrous Refugee Executive Order (EO) was about as popular with the crowd as the EO itself.
Adding to the unease caused by these lackluster performances was the President’s own calamitous appearances back in the United States. I was two seats down from a Swedish Member of Parliament as news broke that Sweden had joined Bowling Green and Atlanta as a location of a faux terror attack. That MP could not have been nicer to me, as I struggled to hide my frustration and embarrassment, but I wondered how long our friends and allies would suffer these kinds of indignities with a smile?
Beyond that, while Americans struggle to explain the latest nonsensical @POTUS tweet or unlawful EO, how long will it be until our adversaries take advantage of our discontent and disorder? It’s hard to deny that process has already begun. No one present in the grand ballroom of the Bayerischer Hof missed the fact that the Russian representatives’ declarations about the “end of the West” were confident, bordering on smug. Whispers that China would move into political and economic spaces left vacant by the United States could be heard at every coffee break.
There was pushback against the idea that the West was in decline. Senator McCain, the annual darling of the Munich Security Conference, delivered an impassioned defense of the U.S.-European alliance. The well-reasoned speech stood in stark contrast to President Trump’s typical style and it certainly overshadowed the remarks of Vice President Pence and Secretaries Mattis and Kelly. That said, while Senator McCain has taken rhetorical stands against the new Administration, people will now be expecting actions.
As the world adjusts to the new policies coming from Washington, I fear the current attitude towards Americans will slowly devolve into anger, just as it did fifteen years ago. It would be hard to blame people. The United States helped create the international institutions and structures that have, for better or for worse, supported global stability for over seventy years. Now it seems that some White House leaders are hell-bent on collapsing that order from the inside.
Seeing the dark clouds on the horizon, I was grateful that the Munich Security Conference and the Korber Foundation provided me with an opportunity to meet with young leaders from around the world and learn from them. I was grateful for the opportunity to make the case that many Americans want no part of the nationalist policies now emanating from the White House. Most of all, I was grateful for the chance to assure these new friends that many Americans will be fighting these policies each and every day.
Of course, my efforts were a small drop in what must be an ocean of outreach. My time in Munich made me think that the international community is giving Americans that value our place in the world a momentary reprieve to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get back in the fight. A sinister and unreasonable form of populism is circling the globe, threatening democracies everywhere. Americans need to reject the fear that is fueling this threat. We need to become living examples of how to combat isolationism, xenophobia and prejudice and not just to avoid angry rants when traveling abroad. If we give into these kinds of fear, we will lose everything that actually makes America great.
We are the home of the brave — let’s act like it.
