{"text":[[{"start":5.5,"text":"The writer is an FT contributing editor, chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, and fellow at IWM Vienna"}],[{"start":13.6,"text":"The geopolitical thinker Robert Kaplan once suggested that “while an understanding of world events begins with maps, it ends with Shakespeare”. Today’s global condition is less exalted. It begins with Donald Trump’s social media posts and ends with the business interests of the US president’s friends and family."}],[{"start":31.700000000000003,"text":"A recent European Council on Foreign Relations publication concludes that Trump’s near-exclusive reliance on friends and family as envoys to broker deals to solve thorny foreign policy problems poses systemic risks for Europe. "}],[{"start":46.45,"text":"The president’s use of special envoys “follows a pattern as recognisable as the signature rhythm of a Morse code operator”, the authors say. “Pressing the weaker party first . . . deferring hard issues [and] implementing agreements through personal networks”. While Europe should fear this new “diplomacy without diplomats”, it should also try to understand it."}],[{"start":67.5,"text":"In a world without shared principles and functioning institutions, special envoys are a necessity. The one thing holding the world together is the fact that it’s the same people negotiating to end the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran, and they are able to call the president at any time. The Board of Peace is no substitute for the UN, but the golf course can be as good as the negotiating table."}],[{"start":92.75,"text":"Diplomacy is changing because the nature of American power is changing. After the second world war, US hegemony provided public goods — open sea lanes, a stable financial system and collective security. Today, America is no longer willing or able to provide those goods. It prefers instead to act as the global disrupter-in-chief."}],[{"start":117,"text":"Other countries should recognise this fact and behave accordingly, mindful that the major goal of US foreign policy is now to remind the rest of the world how powerful it is. The US is practising a form of theatrical hegemony in which all wars are merely “special operations” and all failed special operations (like the one in Iran) are global problems to be solved by others. "}],[{"start":141.6,"text":"In Trump’s foreign policy speed is more important than direction. Frenetic unpredictability keeps everyone off balance. Allies cannot plan, adversaries cannot calibrate and institutions cannot adapt. By the time the world has absorbed one shock, the next has landed. "}],[{"start":159.75,"text":"This helter-skelter approach is what the American political theorist Stephen Holmes calls “hierarchy without order”. You could also call it the Agamemnon doctrine, in which retribution — for enemies and disloyal allies alike — is inevitable."}],[{"start":175.25,"text":"This is a worldview that assumes that states are unequal, that even great powers are not equally great, and that those powers should enjoy their privileges and keep the spoils — but on the condition that they recognise US supremacy. It is not a 21st-century version of spheres of influence politics because in this view the hegemon does not act on interests but is guided by pride and anger."}],[{"start":197.9,"text":"Being a professional diplomat in the age of Trump is like being a coachman in the age of the car. Simply put, you are no longer needed. Your expertise determines your uselessness. "}],[{"start":209,"text":"Special envoys are the new peacemakers because they are unburdened by expertise and unconstrained by bureaucratic process. And the fact that Trump’s middlemen, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are mired in conflicts of private business interests is an advantage — without conflicts of interest, there would be no incentive to solve military conflicts. The fact that they talk all the time about business should make the world believe that they mean peace."}],[{"start":237.6,"text":"Living in Trump’s world is like taking a turn on the Ferris wheel in the Prater, the historic amusement park in Vienna where vertigo makes profits. It is a world shaped by middlemen rather than middle powers — the middle powers (think of Turkey, the Gulf states or Pakistan) dream of being middlemen. "}],[{"start":257.6,"text":"America is in a rush, so there is no time to shoot real movies, only trailers. Some trailers will be powerful enough, as with Venezuela; but some will backfire, as in the case of Iran. "}],[{"start":269.65000000000003,"text":"What matters is time. Conflicts should be short, and if America cannot finish them it will leave it to others to do so. That’s the real meaning of power for Trump: it’s not the capacity to impose your will on others, but rather the ability to force them to solve your problems. The role of the special envoys is to get everyone else to understand this."}],[{"start":297.05,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1778316458_8015.mp3"}