Peter Beinart writes:

In 1945, the United States stood at the apex of its global dominance. It comprised half the world’s GDP, owned 80% of its hard currency, and possessed the only nuclear weapons on earth. So, it’s hardly surprising that, in the spring of that year, Americans designed the logo for the new organization tasked with keeping world peace: the United Nations. With diplomats from across the globe set to arrive in San Francisco for the UN’s inaugural meeting, a State Department committee deputized Donal McLaughlin, the chief graphic designer at the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA, to create an insignia that delegates could wear on their lapel pins. With some modifications, it later became the UN’s official seal.

The insignia depicts a map of the world as seen from the North Pole, encompassing all the continents. It reflects the scale of America’s postwar ambition. President Franklin Roosevelt imagined “four policemen”—Britain, the USSR, China, and the US—together patrolling every segment of the globe. Since Britain and China were in different ways US subordinates, the US would be the most powerful policeman of all. At the UN Security Council, these four great powers—joined by France—would work together to solve problems. Weaker nations could voice their opinions at the UN’s General Assembly. But those opinions would carry little weight. McLaughlin’s insignia depicted the entire world because American leaders felt that with their unparallelled might, and willingness to cooperate with other powerful nations, they could manage the globe as a whole.

The insignia for Donald Trump’s new Board of Peace imitates the UN’s, but with one crucial difference: Its map shows only the Western Hemisphere. In particular, it depicts the US, Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Venezuela and other countries on the northern rim of South America, and Greenland—territories Trump has threatened to dominate or even conquer as part of his “Donroe” Doctrine.

This visual myopia is telling. In 1945, the US fashioned a logo of the entire globe because Washington enjoyed both the might and the appetite for cooperation among great powers necessary to dominate the world. Today, the US no longer does: Its power has declined and so has its willingness to work collaboratively with other powerful nations. So, through the Board of Peace—in which the US presides over weak and corrupt sycophants—Trump has conjured a fantasy. Rather than adapt to the multipolar world that actually exists, he is maintaining the illusion of American supremacy by fashioning an illusory world. It’s fitting that the Board of Peace’s first project is overseeing the Gaza Strip: Although Gaza does not appear on the Board’s map, its brutalized, subjugated, and largely defenseless population makes it one of the few places on earth where Trump can implement his vision of nearly absolute imperial control. [Continue reading…]