You'll Miss The World Order When It's Gone
A dark and all-too-plausible scenario for Trump's second term, as the United States effectively switches sides from democracy to authoritarianism
With Donald Trump about to return to the White House, potential dark scenarios for the future of America abound. But the most profound, unfortunately plausible, and darkest scenario could take place at the international level.
For nearly eighty years, and especially the last thirty-five, the global system has been arranged atop the bedrock of American power. The United States is “leader of the free world,” the linchpin of a network of voluntary alliances of democracies, whose combined military might dwarfs the rest.
People born after World War II take this system for granted because they’ve never known anything else, but it’s what keeps (most) aggressive war at bay, facilitating international commerce, and funneling global interactions through institutions such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization. The United States deserves heaps of criticism for its hypocrisies and failures, but it’s also the main reason international law and human rights have some real world influence.
There’s a live risk that the global order is breaking. And while it wouldn’t happen all at once, if it breaks it will not bounce back.
The range of outcomes Donald Trump’s second term could have on the international order is broad. As always, the worst-case scenario is nuclear war, but that remains subject to mutually assured destruction. A less apocalyptic, though more likely scenario of systemic degradation is still alarming.
The theory here is simple: Trump will do what he has repeatedly promised to do and what he started doing in his first term. He will impose widespread tariffs, undercutting the postwar open trade regime, which disincentivizes conflict by promoting economic interdependence. He will break commitments to democratic allies and cozy up to authoritarians. Defenders of the U.S.-led international order from Trump’s first term, such as Secretary of Defense James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly won’t be there to slow it down. In their stead will be enablers, including Russia sympathizers. The administration will act without fear of impeachment, legal punishment, or loss of re-election, because Trump already overcame all three.
The earliest big impact will be in Ukraine…
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