When President Trump heads to Poland and the G-20 summit in Germany this week, he will be going in a different capacity than any president in our lifetimes. During the first half of the 20th century, the U.S. became the leader of the Western, democratic world. In the second half of that century, there was no real rival as leader of the free world. With global leadership came prestige and clout, but also responsibilities and burdens. With little complaint, generations of Americans shouldered those responsibilities, some in uniform (though at a cost of both lives and treasure, taxpayer funds that surely could have been spent at home). In less than a year, that tradition of global leadership has virtually evaporated. Covering a speech by German Chancellor Angela Merkel shortly after a NATO summit in Brussels and a G-7 meeting in Italy, the headline in the May 29 New York Times was “Wary of Trump, Merkel Doubts U.S. Is Solid Ally.” Merkel said, “The times in which we could rely fully on others—they are somewhat over,” adding that European countries should
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