Halifax Forum reveals the fractures in global democracy

STRAINED ALLIANCES

- MAX BOOT

THE Halifax International Security Forum is an annual gathering of political and military leaders and security experts from democratic countries, with a mission “to strengthen strategic cooperation among the world’s democracies”.

That was not hard to do in 2009, when the conference was founded. It has become nearly impossible now that the world’s most powerful democracy has turned into a rogue nation led by a president who is more sympathetic to dictators than democrats.

US-Canadian relations have been more strained than at any time since the 19th century after US President Donald Trump imposed heavy tariffs on America’s northern neighbour.

US-European relations reached a new crisis point when the Trump administration presented Ukraine with an ultimatum to accept a heavily pro-Russian “peace plan” or risk losing all US support.

Various sessions had hopeful (and exceedingly alliterative) titles, such as “Democracies Don’t Despair,” “Democracies Defeat Dictators” and “Democracies Demand Decency”.

But there was a notable absence at the core of the conference that undercut its premise. In years past, the US delegation included senior administration officials, generals and admirals.

This year, the Trump administration stayed home and forced the US military to do the same. This isn’t an aberration. The administration recently boycotted the Group of 20 summit in South Africa.

How does the Trump team expect to win any diplomatic victories when it’s not even on the field?

At Halifax, the only official US presence was a bipartisan Senate delegation, and its Republican members had to confront a lot of uncomfortable criticism of the president. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) was visibly fuming after watching a video of Trump’s litany of unhinged insults aimed at various people.