By Collins Chong Yew Keat

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: President Donald Trump’s address to the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), on the issue of the role of the UN and the need for peace, struck a realistic chord. Through the “America First” and “peace through strength” mantra, the U.S. saved the world by ending wars and remains the only power both trusted and capable of defending global peace, with a proven track record but largely being overlooked. 

The contrast of U.S. achievements in resolving conflicts with the record of the United Nations, has never been starker. Trump has returned the strength of American power supremacy, and with it, the unmatched leverage to compel forces to stop wars, or to prevent one from breaking out. 

Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has shouldered the sole responsibility of upholding global peace with its unrivalled military and economic power. No other nation is as widely trusted and banked upon to lead alliances or to deter aggression. 

These actions to rewrite international norms underscore the need for a strong and sustained American presence, as only Washington has the capacity and credibility to prevent wars and to win one.

Many nations, and especially the weaker and smaller ones, depend on the conventional rule of law and the sanctity of the international law that have been safeguarded by the U.S. to protect their sovereignty and right to peace and stability. And this must be upheld. 

As Trump rightly argued, America is the only power both able and trusted to defend world peace. Case in point, the long peace in Europe since 1945 and in the Asia-Pacific since 1953 was not created on its own, it was upheld by U.S. troops and nuclear deterrence, not by UN resolutions. 

In Trump’s blunt words: “As the president delivers peace in major conflicts around the world, what has the United Nations been doing?”. The gap is filled by the US with decisive actions, and the tenacity to see them through. 

Trump’s unorthodox diplomacy: Ending perpetual wars

If Trump did not win the second term, these conflicts would never end, with the conventional models used by typical politicians which further worsened the death tolls and destruction. Trump has to clean up Biden’s mess, inheriting the disaster in Ukraine and Afghanistan. 

With his unique and unmatched model and approach, he has  yielded a string of ceasefires and peace deals that eluded conventional diplomacy. He has prevented seven wars from worsening and created peace, since he came to power just around more than half a year ago.  From the Cambodia-Thailand discord to the India-Pakistan fallout, Trump’s intervention made it possible for these figures and forces to back down, and to prevent a protracted and a much more serious conflict.

Far from UN’s slow, ineffective and outdated approaches, Trump often bypassed slow bureaucracies and processes, opting instead for personal diplomacy with personal phone calls with leaders, using the leverage and power of the U.S. economic clout (tariffs or aid cuts warnings), and wielding military force as credible factor of increased cards.

This “peace through strength” strategy yielded real results in a short time frame, and only America has the unrivalled strength to enforce this strategy to fruition, something which the United Nations and other actors were simply not able to mirror.

In essence, Trump demonstrated effectively that it has been the US leadership, not UN bureaucracy, that is what ends wars.

Millions of people are safe from harm’s way because these wars are being halted, a point Trump rightly underlined when he argued that the real prize will be the millions of people saved and prevented from being killed in these endless wars.

The Failures of UN and Globalism 

Trump argued that the UN has lost its influence, power, and relevance, and the inefficacies have failed to uphold peace, while globalism has also failed. He was proven right again. The concept of globalism, with the idea of transferring or tolerating portions of national sovereignty to international systems or oversight, has failed to improve the world. 

The UN is the first case in point, being paralysed to find meaningful solutions to actual wars, due to institutional mechanisms and the lack of capacity to enforce and to follow through the ramifications of any violations to the rules.

In conflict after conflict, from Ukraine to Syria and from Yemen to Myanmar, the UN has effectively been reduced to a bystander, mostly confined to issuing appeals that are largely ignored.

Even UN peacekeeping missions find difficulties to impose peace on active wars. One of the most quintessential and foremost roles of the UN is to prevent war, but has not been happening, while the US acts as the custodian of the world better than the UN. 

Decades of amped up globalisation also saw factories in the US basically folded, where overseas’ lure of cheaper costs caused corporations to move to China and other parts of the world, boosting profits at the expense of locals’ employment.

The long held premise that a globalised free trade would lift all boats in a rising tide did not come through for many people in the West, especially from the middle income families. All while Beijing strategically leveraged the globalist trade framework including the WTO to rise without liberalising both politically or economically as hoped. 

Trump argued that globalism has not only failed to bring the intended change for the better, but  empowered revisionist regimes at the expense of American and Western workers. 

The nature of globalist ideals have also undermined national security, where many NATO countries underinvest in their collective defence, hoping for the utopian hope of peace.

Trump is therefore right  to assert that a strong nation-state, particularly a strong United States – is indispensable for global peace and stability, in a situation where abstract global governance has weakened and failed.

Peace through strength: Unmatched power as leverage

Trump used this mantra to perfection, using the whole of the US might to deter would be aggressors. The American military supremacy under his first term enabled a relatively peaceful period of time for the world, where no new wars happened under his watch, a rare phenomenon under recent presidencies. 
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine would not have happened had he remained as President, and he managed to tone down the tensions over North Korea during his first term, effectively cleaning up Obama’s mess.

The US Navy, by far the world’s most powerful, patrols the seas and keeps vital shipping lanes open, preserving global trade and security, and even China is benefitting from this, enabling its rise.

The international law ensures freedom of the seas, but it is upon the US military prowess that ensures that freedom is reality. 

Conversely, when the US shows weakness or hesitancy, trouble often ensues. This can be seen in the example of the retreat of UN forces that consisted mainly of US forces from Somalia in 1993, which emboldened terrorists. The U.S. inaction under Obama in the Syrian red line debacle in 2013 is seen as the precursor and the factor for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine later. 

Trump is cognisant of this, and his insistence that strength projection and deterrence is the best approach in preventing bad actors from creating conflicts, produced results. His unpredictable toughness made adversaries think twice. 

Where America has been fully engaged and present, conflicts are contained and avoided and conversely, where it retreats, chaos and uncertainties reigned. 
Trump’s UNGA speech unapologetically reaffirmed this, where peace was kept not by conventional treaties or dialogues, but by the deterrent power of Washington.

America – The last best hope for peace

Trump emphasised that the United States leads the world in saving lives, fighting disease, and alleviating poverty, efforts that often go underappreciated. 

The US is by far the world’s largest donor of foreign aid and humanitarian assistance and is the largest financial contributor to the UN, providing close to $13 billion in 2023, which was over one-quarter of the UN’s entire collective budget.

Over the past decade, Americans donated about US$25 billion to the World Food Program,  keeping tens of millions from starvation.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, after developing vaccines at record speed under Operation Warp Speed by Trump, Washington became the biggest donor of COVID vaccine to other countries. 

When Trump criticises the UN, it is not because Washington does not support humanitarian aims, but it is because the U.S. has been committing immensely and wants to see better results. 

Trump’s point is that no other power other than the US has the resources, reach, and values to sustain this drive of humanity support. Europe contributes far less, and China and Russia even less still. America’s leadership has saved tens of millions of lives, prevented wars and famines, and rebuilt nations, a feat where globalism drive and multilateral institutions alone could not deliver without the U.S. 

Trump’s America First philosophy is not in contradiction of this generosity, rather, Trump contends that a strong America is what enables such generosity, and that American aid should be recognised, appreciated and strategically managed and not wasted on ineffective globalist projects and globalist ideals.

The US remains the only power both Trusted and able to defend world peace, and Trump is right when he warned that if American leadership is not appreciated and falters, the world order that is has been striving to defend will crumble under authoritarian actions and globalist failures.

When Trump said; “I ended seven wars…It’s too bad I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them.”, it reflects the state of the UN and the world now, where no established capacity is present and capable of preserving peace and preventing wars. 

The world should then take note: a strong US with an unconventional yet effective and capable leader can achieve more what a verbose global establishment cannot, and most importantly, Trump has single handedly done more than the entire global institution alone. 

*Collins Chong Yew Keat is a foreign affairs and strategy analyst and author in University of Malaya.*