EUROPE AND AMERICA MUST REDEFINE SECURITY: STOP FIGHTING OVER CHLORINATED CHICKENS AND START COOPERATING OVER DIGITAL THREATS.

• Author: Hurlburt, Heather

Since the aftermath of World War II, foreign-policy practitioners have seen trade agreements as good for security regardless of their content. They were confident that trade deals strengthened political ties and ideological ties, made security agreements more credible, and made conflict less likely. Anything that tied pro-Western democracies to each other, and other countries to them, was thus good.

During the Obama presidency, officials made this argument while unsuccessfully negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a sweeping would-have-been U.S.-Europe trade agreement. Today, security strategists make similar claims in encouraging the Trump administration or its successor to keep trying for a deal.

Yet the core logic behind this argument has fallen apart. The past 20 years of globalization, including trade deals, have raised inequality and insecurity in the United States and Europe. The post-Cold War explosion in economic activity was distributed unevenly within economies, going to elites and urban regions to an unprecedented degree. That has spurred frightening levels of cynicism about democracy and support for extremist politicians in both places, putting immense strain on the democracies we intended to secure. In other words, the extreme narrowness of the economic gains of post-Cold War globalization is destabilizing the planet.

Promoting these kinds of deals is thus a form of security malpractice. Instead, policymakers should work with Europe to redefine security--with the goal of reversing both threats to democracy at home and the decline in transatlantic engagement.

The next administration (or even this one) should open or expand discussions with Europe across new economic and technological domains. They should look to identify how we shape common interests and a common identity while supporting our military security, but also the health of our democracy. Rather than reigniting struggles over economic traditions such as agricultural subsidies, as current transatlantic trade negotiations do, these discussions should focus on industries that have a proven impact on security and a clearer impact on growth.

President Trump has defined security as synonymous with the strength of domestic heavy industry and the jobs that go with it. But his approach has failed to improve economic security and made no appreciable dent in China and Russia's military gains. Instead, we should focus on cultivating a "small yard" of...