Trump and Vance: American Wolf Warriors

Nicholas Ross Smith and Tracey Fallon argue that Donald Trump and JD Vance represent American wolf warriors and, like in China where the wolf warrior diplomacy phenomenon originated, it is a sign that a tricky two-level game has emerged in the United States.

The recent Oval Office showdown between Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky and the President and Vice-President of the United States, Donald Trump and JD Vance, has sent diplomatic shockwaves across the Western world. Indeed, it is hard to think of any historical examples of Oval Office meetings that matched what transpired last week (especially as it involved an ostensible ally), particularly as such public-facing events are usually conducted under strict decorum and diplomacy.

The performances of Trump and Vance are a stark demonstration that, when it comes to diplomacy and foreign policy, this current administration is a different beast compared to previous ones (even in Trump’s first term, nothing like this occurred).

While the Oval Office encounter may be unprecedented, there are elements not out of keeping with Trump’s impatience with diplomatic protocols. During Trump’s first term, he was known for bucking conventional diplomacy, especially when it came to relations with Xi Jinping and China. During that time, informal and uncoventional diplomatic channels were favoured.

However, the public ridiculing of Zelensky is more reminiscent of incidents when key Chinese officials have strongly pushed back against foreign officials and media.

One notable example was at the Alaska talks between the United States and China in March 2021 where prominent CCP officials, Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi, rebuked the United States for its human rights record while demanding it “fully abandon the hegemonic practice of willfully interfering in China's internal affairs.” Overall, the talks were noted as being tense and involving “heated exchanges” that undermined the purpose of the talks.

China’s more rhetorically assertive style of diplomacy was given the moniker ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy after the film series of the same name in which Chinese special forces take on foreign adversaries. It came to prominence at a time when China was keen to demonstrate to the world that it had risen to a point that demanded great international respect.

The Chinese public warmly received the tone of the Alaska talks and viral memes of the end of the Xinchou Treaty of 1901 (which ended the Boxer Rebellion) circulated online as many celebrated China’s growing strength. The arc from the beleaguered Qing dynasty suffering humiliation to a position of boldly challenging the power of the United States was celebrated.

Such sentiment was captured and repurposed by diplomatic officials in the popular retort: China is not the country it was 120 years ago.

Wolf warrior diplomacy, however, has been heavily criticized for being a bad diplomatic strategy and, on the face of it, it is hard to see how it has aided China’s international goals and ambitions. If anything, wolf warrior diplomacy has helped deepen growing suspicion and anxiety about China’s rise, particularly in the West.

The important thing to note here about wolf warrior diplomacy is that this was not employed to pursue international interests. Rather, wolf warrior diplomacy was mostly about the CCP using the growing nationalism inside of China as a source of regime legitimacy (at a time when its traditional source, economic prosperity was diminishing).

In other words, this was domestic-facing public diplomacy.

When a country faces a balancing act between its international ambitions and its domestic setting, it is known as a ‘two-level game’. Typically, countries can pursue foreign policies without much public scrutiny because such issues are of low salience to the general public, so the two-level game is easy to navigate.

But, when the issue is something that elicits significant public scrutiny, the two-level game becomes much harder to navigate (sometimes impossible). The example of the Vietnam War was used by the founder of the two-level game, Robert Putnam, as “the American public (or at least the politically active public) was more eager for a negotiated end to the Vietnam War than was the Nixon administration” which significantly “affected the agreement reached at the Paris talks.”

Importantly, the rule of thumb is that when a country is faced with a tricky two-level game to navigate, domestic considerations usually outweigh international ones.

While democracies are naturally prone to the two-level game phenomenon, more authoritarian countries experience them too (really, only the most repressive regimes seem somewhat immune). Public opinion is important to the health of many types of regimes.

Applying the two-level game lens to what transpired in the Zelensky meeting demonstrates that it not only resembles Chinese wolf warrior diplomacy in tone and theatrics but it also resembles the two-level game that has been affecting China’s international actions.

While there was significant ridicule and condemnation online from Democrat political figures, academics, journalists, and some corners of the general public, Trump’s support base was enjoying the show. The pageantry of the dressing down Zelensky got was seen in the ‘MAGAverse’ as evidence of Trump pursuing an ‘America first’ stance and putting a ‘petulant’ and ‘ungrateful’ Zelensky in his place.

Indeed, it is hard to see the meeting with Zelenksy as anything other than domestic politics filtering into diplomacy. The so-called ‘culture wars’ that have dominated American politics since Trump was first elected in 2016 is seemingly playing out in the United States’ international action now.

Furthermore, it is not just isolated to Ukraine as one of Trump’s first foreign policy moves was to de-fund USAID because, according to the increasingly influential Elon Musk, it is a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America” and “a criminal organization.”

And while there will be domestic gains with an American version of wolf warrior diplomacy, like China’s experience, there will be significant international costs to the United States too. Indeed, in the space of a few months, countries allied to the United States in the Indo-Pacific and Europe that have pegged their futures to pursuing greater security cooperation with the United States are having to find contingency plans to mitigate against a growing perception that Trump is not trustworthy or interested.

Further afield, countries in the Global South that already have a suspicious view of the United States are likely to strengthen such viewpoints and seek out greater cooperation elsewhere.

American power has never just been about its military or economic strength. Softer forms of power, such as its diplomatic capabilities, its network of friendships, its development aid largesse, and its global cultural importance were critical to entrenching the United States as the global preeminent power. While it remains militarily and economically unrivalled, the erosion of other sources of power will significantly reduce the United States’ global influence and potentially push more countries towards China (which has abandoned its wolf warrior diplomacy) and groups like the BRICS.

But for Trump, this likely doesn’t matter as it is the domestic, not the international that concerns him the most at the moment.

Nicholas Ross Smith, University of Canterbury.

Tracey Fallon, University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

Photo by Steve