There is a telling moment in every empire's decline: when its leaders no longer deign to show up at the global table. This week, Donald Trump's conspicuous absence from the World Cup final has set tongues wagging among the chattering classes, who fret over 'diplomatic strategy' as if the man had a strategy beyond the next headline. But let us not mistake pique for policy. The former president's no-show is less a tactical error than a symptom of a deeper rot: the infantilisation of American statecraft.
Consider the Victorian era, when Britain's Palmerston or Disraeli would have grasped any opportunity to project power, even at a football match. They understood that soft power – the waving of a flag, the shaking of a hand - oils the wheels of hard influence. Today, we have a political class that treats international events as if they were optional episodes in a reality show. Trump’s absence is not an anomaly; it is the logical end of a culture that has confused celebrity with sovereignty.
And what of the analysts who wring their hands? They belong to a tribe that has spent decades dismantling the very institutions that once enforced a coherent foreign policy. They speak of 'diplomatic strategy' as though it were a lost art, but they are the ones who buried it. The Silk Road, the Congress of Vienna, the Marshall Plan: these were built by men who understood that presence matters. Our current crop of pundits would have you believe that a tweet is a substitute for a summit.
Let us be blunt. The World Cup is a global arena where nations compete, but more importantly, where they mingle. To snub it is to signal that you consider yourself above the common fray. This may play well in the fever swamps of cable news, but it is a catastrophic message to send to allies and rivals alike. It says: 'We do not need you.' And history shows that a nation that stands too proudly alone soon finds itself standing on borrowed time.
We are witnessing a replay of the late Roman Republic, where the elite retreated into their villas and let the barbarians pick at the gates. The barbarians, in this case, are the forces of chaos and illiberalism that feast on American retreat. Trump's absence from the World Cup is a small act, but it is a harbinger of larger withdrawals. The question is not whether his absence matters, but whether anyone in Washington has the clarity to see what it portends.
If I sound strident, it is because the stakes are high. National identity is forged in such moments of engagement. To absent oneself is to cede the stage to others. The Romans built an empire on roads and laws; we built one on presence and persuasion. If we abandon the latter, the former will crumble. So let the analysts witter about 'strategy'. I see only the slow, elegant suicide of a great power, one missed event at a time.
