Trump and Putin share a craving for status. That’s why they both want to destroy Europe | Henry Farrell and Sergey Radchenko

There are people who claim that Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine is not motivated by fears or imperial ambitions, but by lack of respect from other countries. Russia once enjoyed authority as one of the world’s two superpowers, but has since lost this status. She knows she has lost the respect of other countries (Barack Obama called Russia a mere “regional power”), and the war in Ukraine is her way of winning it back.

What is perhaps surprising is that Donald Trump’s turn against Europe has similar motivations. Putin knows that his aggressive revanchism will not win Russia the love of the countries whose respect he craves. But if he cannot be loved, he at least hopes to be feared. If you belong to a social order that considers you inferior, it is in your best interest to become a spoiler.

Likewise, Trump wants to disrupt a social order that holds him and his worldview in contempt. The US president and his officials enjoy the respect of dictators and kings (although perhaps not those whose respect they most desire – Putin and Xi Jinping), but they know that the leaders of many other democratic countries despise them.

Today, it is America that wants to play the role of disruptor, shattering the existing hierarchy of respect and replacing it with a world in which Trump will obtain unqualified obedience. Europe, with its emphasis on the rule of law and multilateralism, is the strongest example of an entire system of prestige and values ​​that the Trump administration wants to destroy.

The irony is that it was the United States that built the world that Trump is preparing to tear down. After World War II, Washington developed a new global ambition. Republicans and Democrats shared the belief that a world built on American values ​​would be better for America. It proclaims that democracy and the rule of law are the ideals by which countries should be measured.

Despite the obvious hypocrisy (the United States itself regularly acted in illiberal and undemocratic ways and preferred to judge rather than be judged), it was the cornerstone of American “soft power”; its ability to influence the world indirectly through culture and values. Other countries looked to the United States as a model to follow.

Modern Europe is the greatest creation of the old order. After World War II, the United States helped rebuild the economies of Western Europe, fostering the success of liberal parties and often quietly undermining those it considered too far to the left or right.

The European Union has historical roots in an agreement created to coordinate American aid disbursed under the Marshall Plan. As it developed, it built a new regime for Europe, based on cooperation between nations, the importance of law and liberal democracy. After the collapse of Soviet rule over Eastern Europe, the EU expanded to include southern and eastern countries, provided they internalized democratic principles. In many ways, the EU embodied the values ​​of the liberal order created by the United States more than America itself.

The Trump administration now wants to break up the old order and replace it with one based on power and national interest. Its new national security strategy proclaims that it wants to “maintain America’s unrivaled ‘soft power,'” but that the path to doing so is through recognizing “America’s inherent greatness and decency.” Trump boasts in his foreword to his strategy that “America is finally strong and respected again.”

The problem is that this is obviously not true. Countries that remain attached to liberal values ​​have absolutely no respect for Trump’s United States. They treat him like an angry, incoherent drunk with a bazooka. You say everything you hope will calm them down, but you definitely don’t respect them. American soft power and its indirect influence on other democracies are fading.

This explains why Trump’s national security strategy devotes so much energy and venom to denouncing Europe. Even if the United States ostensibly renounces the ambition to change the world, it claims to want to intervene in Europe and transform it.

Maga America wants to help the European parties it favors – but this time they are far-right. Instead of promoting European cooperation, as the United States did after World War II, the Trump administration now hopes to turn discontent in the new EU member states into an obstacle to the EU’s liberal and democratic values, thereby transforming Europe into a collection of sovereign nations, all strongly nationalist and culturally “white.”

In this world, Europe would no longer constitute a barrier to Maga ideology. The challenge the Trump administration faces is that it simply does not have the capacity or global ambition to deliver this transformation.

Like Russia, the administration wants respect, but it has no power to do anything other than act as a disruptor. He wants to shape Europe more while wishing to engage less with Europe, withdrawing from his role as guarantor of NATO.

The Trump strategy denounces the “massive military, diplomatic, intelligence and foreign aid complex” that underpins America’s global ambitions and does everything in its power to gut it. But without this complex, it will not be able to reshape Europe in its image.

It is certain that the Trump administration can resort to scattered interventions to punish the European Union, while trying to help far-right parties come to power. He already denies visas to people who have acted as fact-checkers and moderators of social media, which he accuses of censoring right-wing views, and threatening the EU for its recklessness in regulating services such as

The Trump administration wants to benefit from global respect and soft power, which is why it is attacking Europe. But they also want to retrench, reducing their global capabilities and transforming the United States into a regional power like Russia that invests its forces in intimidating countries in its neighborhood. It can’t be both.

• Henry Farrell is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University. Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Henry A Kissinger Center, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies