In these times of world power reconfiguration, some states are raising geopolitical heads to exercise leverage in the world arena at the expense of the dominant United States of America, which virtually ruled the world for roughly a century, the “American Century”.
It was an American world order, imposing American ‘liberalism’ everywhere, at times using such crude tools as coups, assassinations, and even mounting disastrous wars in little countries while avoiding direct military confrontation with its post-World War II ideological rival in the Soviet Union. The two fought in every way except shooting at each other directly and called that hostility ‘Cold War.’ The US ‘won’ that Cold War partly by tricking the Soviets into Afghanistan, committing not to expand NATO into Eastern Europe, and promising financial assistance to Russia.
Having ended Soviet ‘history’, the US felt euphorically entitled to ignore promises and commitments while imposing its will everywhere. Being Cold War victorious made the US very arrogant.
The US arrogance of power and its belief it could do anything, anytime, anywhere, anyhow and suffer no repercussions ultimately undid it. Donald J. Trump is the symbol of that undoing by way of losing internal and external credibility.
Long gone were the days in 1962 when French President Charles de Gaulle could declare that he needed no proof because the President of the United States does not lie. That trust disappeared as presidents were caught fabricating ‘things’ to justify illegalities, which cumulatively eroded US ‘soft power’ that is critical in governance and in the conduct of international affairs. Trump simply made that erosion globally open.
When members of the American ‘Establishment’ questioned Trump’s 2016 election, attributing it to Russian meddling, they subjected revered US institutions to doubt. He, Trump, was not the type of man that the 1787 US Constitution crafters had in mind when they imposed the Electoral College into the presidential election system. With the ‘Establishment’ casting doubts about his victory, Trump felt justified in claiming there was electoral theft and in rejecting Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. He bounced back in 2024, determined to reorganise the world to fit his ‘anti-establishment’ and New Right beliefs.
It was his bellicosity in the world arena, however, that forced US ‘allies’ to defy him in search of an alternative to US leadership.
Trump’s hostility to the existing world order affected the Conceptual West most partly because the US usually leads the West in ordering the ‘Rest’, or what EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell called ‘Jungle’, into compliance with the wishes of the ‘Garden’ in the West.
For Trump, the US was the only ‘garden’ to be protected while the rest, including the West, constituted the ‘jungle’ to be tamed to safeguard and advance American interests. Those interests included imposing high tariffs on every country, accusing European countries of joyriding on American largesse, dismissing Canada as a geopolitical fiction that should be part of the United States as the 51st state, renaming everything ‘American’, grabbing Greenland from Denmark, and disorganising NATO while ignoring the long-standing Euro-creed of Western hostility towards Russia. Initially, although shocked, most Western powers tried to understand and pamper Trump instead of confronting him for deliberately breaking international law and violating commitments and assorted promises. He had little respect for international law.
Trump was not the first US president to violate international law, commitments and promises. He was just the most egregious. Bill Clinton expanded NATO into Eastern Europe, despite George H.W. Bush’ commitments to Russia, simply because he wanted to change Russia. George W. Bush, with Britain’s Tony Blair tagging along, invaded Iraq on fabricated grounds. Barack Obama oversaw the ‘Arab Spring’ with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton boasting of her role in killing Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Obama later regretted his lack of proper thinking when going to Libya. Joe Biden ignored advice that, given previous US commitment not to threaten the Russian sense of security, it was not wise to egg Ukraine on to provoke Russia's wrath. Trump’s ‘shocking’ attitude, therefore, was in the good company of his immediate predecessors at the White House. Having previously condoned, and even assisted in, US violations of commitments, promises, and aspects of international law, members of the Conceptual West were scared, confused, and hesitant to call out Trump when he turned his geopolitical appetite on them.
While the Euros were seemingly shocked by Trump’s anti-establishment behaviour, others in the presumed ‘jungle’ were not, having learned how to react to power shifting and even, especially Osama bin Laden and China, served as catalysts for the shift.
In its anti-Soviet operations in Afghanistan, the US had allied itself with Osama, only to ignore him following their success. A bitter Osama turned anti-US and inaugurated the era of international terrorism. In doing so, Osama exposed US security vulnerability and thereby changed the sense of global security consciousness. At the same time, as the US remained obsessed with fixing Russia, just as ancient Rome had been obsessed with eliminating Carthage simply because it continued to exist, China systematically asserted itself on the world stage. Inching upwards in the global power ladder, mostly under Xi Jinping’s guidance, China outperformed many in the ‘garden’ to become a geopolitical and economic powerhouse, 2nd in GDP ranking. It successfully turned the American hegemony into a US-China bipolarity by interacting/trading with, and appearing to be reasonable to, every country while those in the ‘gardens’ spewed insults at those they considered inferiors in the hypothetical ‘jungles.’
Other people in other countries, not shocked by Trump’s global power antics, challenged Euro-assumptions of superiority over the rest.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly followed Kautilya’s Arthashastra script on power and effective governance and, with its population passing that of China, jumped to be 6th in world GDP ranking. Brazil in Latin America is at Number 11 in the world GDP ranking and insists it is a ‘major’ or ‘emerging’ power that is free to decide for itself. Straddling between Europe and Asia, Turkey is 16th in the world GDP ranking and dreams of reviving the Ottoman Empire to stretch southwards to Eastern Africa, where it operates big in Somalia.
On their part, Africans were generally not shocked by Trump’s antics. They were used to American insults, whether it was Richard Nixon discussing Africans as ‘children’, Ronald Reagan calling them “Monkeys” because they helped Communist China into the UN and the UN Security Council, or Trump declaring African countries “shitholes”. While some “shitholes” reportedly surrendered to Trump’s conditions for receiving aid, Ghana’s John Mahama defiantly rejected US ‘health’ aid conditions that Ghana surrender its health data to the US and thereby negate Ghana’s sovereignty.
Trump’s outbursts, therefore, shocked mostly those in the Conceptual West rather than in the presumed ‘jungle’. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, in showing willingness to fight US attacks, emerged as a ‘symbol of resistance’ to Trump, who had transformed himself into an ‘enemy’ of Euro Middle Powers. In fighting Trump’s “trade war”, Carney said Canada has “everything we need to pivot and prosper [and although] that pivot will come at a cost ... it doesn’t come close to the cost of standing still.” The ‘Star of Davos’, in warning that the West was “in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” urged Middle Powers to “act together because if we are not at the table, we’re on the menu.” They seemingly agreed with him despite Trump warning “Mark” to watch his utterances. The US had lost its “American Century” mostly because it had lost world reliability.
