Hillary or Trump, next president will face dictators on their own terms

As the US general election gears up following the party conventions, the two polarizing candidates are delineating diametrically opposing visions of not just America, but the world at large.

Yet in fact, regardless of the rhetoric between now and January 20, the incoming 45th US president will be faced with a fundamentally altered global environment characterized by a combination of strengthened autocratic regimes and seemingly gridlocked and ineffectual democratic allies - on top of what will probably remain a deeply divided society right here at home.

That means that Trump or Hillary will be facing such strongmen as Putin, Xi, and Erdogan largely on their own terms, with little pretense that anything can be done in the standard geopolitical ways to pressure them to loosen or moderate their regimes or even block the spread of their illiberal influences regionally.

After a quarter-century of US military and economic hegemony since the end of the Cold War, Washington can no longer count on military primacy in eastern (possibly even central) Europe, nor on economic primacy in east and southeast Asia. Should the Russo-Chinese strategic partnership blossom into a full-fledged alliance, it would put enormous pressure on the lesser powers of the Eurasian supercontinent to fall in line at least partly with Moscow and Beijing, which in the contemporary ideological and geopolitical environment automatically means a loss for Washington.

The loss would be far worse if traditional US allies in Europe and Asia become so skeptical of American commitment to defending and promoting liberal democracy and free markets that they increasingly strike out on their own to deal with the resurgent dictatorships, whose threats feel ever more immediate to them even as American assurances feel ever more distant.

That being said, there's bound to be quite a difference in the optics of a Clinton versus a Trump response to this unprecedented challenge to US influence on both the Atlantic and Pacific flanks of Eurasia. Whereas the latter will seek to cut deals as quickly as possible - largely on the dictators' terms - to prioritize stability and mutual non-aggression even at the expense of liberal evangelism, the former will seek to shore up the buffers of global democratic liberalism (even seizing chances to expand them) even if it heightens tensions with autocrats.

In either case, however, the underlying reality will be unmistakable, as it already is: active, tangible US power and freedom of action are increasingly constricted across both great oceans, and Washington is bound to find itself, sooner or later, dealing with opposing or even hostile political systems with no illusions left that they can be brought (or brought back) to its liberal consensus anytime soon.

While Trump is gambling that America can "win" for its own security by preemptively conceding those battles which are too difficult and refocusing on a few common issues shared by democracies and dictatorships alike, Hillary hopes that a renewed resolve can buy enough time for both the country and its allies to reinvigorate their domestic progressive institutions to such a degree that the exceptional "American way" will become attractive again, even to dictatorships.

In fact, some combination of both approaches is most likely to yield the best results.

Trump and his supporters should be under no illusions that US disengagement from the world is even possible, let alone desirable; paradoxically, the aim of any partial pullbacks of military or economic efforts should be to increase overall US influence (by highlighting its necessity), not diminish it.

Likewise, Hillary and her camp must realize that having the best ideas and ideals isn't a license to keep underachieving in terms of actual results; not only must America choose its battles more selectively than ever, but it must engage in them with an ever greater attention to what its own popularly mandated priorities actually are (to avoid over-committing and thereby under-delivering).

America can easily retain its global leadership role and in fact do a much better job at it. The silver lining of the present crisis is that the world's only superpower - openly acknowledged by both Russia and China as such, even taking into account their own recent resurgences - must now think and act smarter, not harder. Far from a sign of weakness, to face dictators on their own terms will prove America's exceptional gift - and the dictators themselves will recognize it.