The writer is the author, more recently, of Homelands: a personal history of Europe
A poem that bequeathed to us with the epic Canadian ser-singer Leonard Cohen ends with the words: oh and another thing / you are not liked / what comes after / America.
While we spend the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, every day provides additional evidence that an international order remarkably for a long time in the United States is over. Everyone rushes now to determine what could succeed him. A new multi-polar order? Spheres of influence? A world version of the 19th century Europe concert? However, the most plausible response is by far an extended and dangerous period of global disorder.
Of course, there has never been any golden age of the universal liberal order. But in major regions of the world, in Europe, Asia and Oceania, there was security and an economic order led by the Liberal Leviathan, while Princeton researcher, John Ikenberry, nicknamed the after-1,945 in the United States. This order, which reached its zenith at the beginning of this century, has decreased for some time, in part because of the rise of the rest, itself facilitated by globalization led by the United States, and partly because of artistic self-control to the Americas.
President Donald Trump is now starting what remains of the building with unrivaled speed and imprudence. Even in the unlikely case where American democracy emerges unscathed by four years of Trumpian revolution, with regard to relations between the United States and its allies, it will never be happy in the morning with confidence (to quote Robert Brownings The lost leader).
With three or potentially four important wars which are now raging (Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, India at nuclear weapons and Pakistan against Kashmir) and three -digit prices between the two economies in the world, which can doubt that was currently in a period of dangerous disorders? Some always hope that we will emerge soon, either by a miraculous restoration of the old order, or by the creation of a new one. Well, hope, but here are several good reasons to doubt it.
Even if a growing superpowered (China) and a relatively down superpower (the United States) is not intended to fall into the thucydide trap and to go to war, periods of major power changes bring increased international tensions almost invariably. The leaders of China and Russia have just marked the end of the European part of the Second World War by meeting in Moscow to reaffirm their partnership against the West. Xi Jinping even assimilates arrogant fascist forces defeated in 1945 with today's unilateralism, hegemony and intimidation. (Guess to whom?) Russia now has a war economy and Vladimir Putin is determined to restore as much as it can from the Russian Empire. Narendra Modis India has his own nationalist ambitions and an obsessive enmity towards Pakistan supported by Chinese.
Besides these great rival powers, there are a range of medium -sized powers such as Turkey, Brazil and South Africa. Surprisingly, these countries often see opportunities in the new disorder. They can line up with great power in one purpose, another for another, all the time bringing their own objectives. Meanwhile, small states like those in the Gulf can play with and between all the great powers, such as the bird of Egyptian plate which flourishes by cleaning the detritus between the crocodile teeth.
For 80 years since nuclear weapons were abandoned on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the taboo on their use held. But while the world looked at a major war won by a nuclear Russia against Ukraine, a country that voluntarily abandoned its nuclear weapons from the Soviet era in 1994 in exchange for security insurance in the United States, the United Kingdom and the darkest comedy), the fragile dam against nuclear proliferation seems likely to end.
South Korea, scary on what Russia has promised in North Korea in exchange for substantial military support against Ukraine, has an active debate on the acquisition of nuclear weapons and technology to do so. The subject is in many minds in the Middle East, because this region is full of nuclear Israel and nuclear Iran, while Europeans begin to feel that they need their own nuclear umbrella.
Meanwhile, a continuous technological revolution generates new dimensions of geopolitical rivalry, including control of data, software and communication networks. AI, in particular, brings the danger of a new arms race, more unpredictable than that nuclear of cold wars. If China can surprise the United States with a depth, why could it not secretly develop a deep outing? Continuous population growth and climate change will exacerbate competition for resources and pressures for mass migration.
Certainly, there are compensatory forces. China has an obvious economic interest in preserving a global trading system open from which it was the largest beneficiary. Even the most opportunistic average powers must fear that disorders will become a total break. There are encouraging signs of a liberal response in Canada, Australia and Europe. Lepop Leo XIV promises to build bridges on a land in difficulty.
Nothing in history is inevitable. However, those of us who believe in the ideal never fully achievable of the liberal international order will be well advised to assume that the melancholic Cohen was right. We must actively prepare for an extended period of global disorders.
