From the Crusades to the fight against Hitler, from US intervention in Vietnam to the Iraq war, morality has often been used to validate military campaigns and foreign policy goals. But perhaps no longer. Trump's emphasis on ""America First"" makes little attempt to hold the moral high ground and declares self-interest alone. Securing US mineral rights in Ukraine is not proposed as a moral strategy. Meanwhile, Sweden's Foreign Minister recently renounced the aim of being a 'moral great power' and the UK has embraced 'realism' in foreign affairs. While many warn that discarding morality leads to a dangerous world where might is right, others point to the terrors and tragedies carried out in the name of morality, from the Inquisition to the Nazis who urged the moral necessity of 'cleansing Europe'.
In world affairs, is the new age one where moral claims are abandoned and instead self-interest is the goal? Given radically different national perspectives, are the universal claims of morality necessarily impossible? Or is a language of morality essential to constrain belligerent leaders and their wild and sometimes tyrannical fantasies?
