The Greenland psychodrama, along with some of the surprising views heard at Davos last week, especially Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s sharp language about the end of the rules-based order (for more information on this issue please read the analysis titled “PM Mark Carney: Excellent “standing ovation” in Davos about what is happening in the world“), have sent Western geopolitical anxiety to new heights of alarm, confusion and, often, despair.
This is certainly true in Europe, where the increasingly likely collapse of the transatlantic relationship, at least in the essential form we have known it for over 80 years, raises almost existential questions in terms of future security (for more analysis on this issue please read the article titled “What type of alliance is the Atlantic Alliance part of?“).
Beyond security, the consequences for future European economic and technological competitiveness of a serious “cultural” rupture with the US, perhaps even a transition to a military rivalry, could well be disastrous or even definitive.
There is no predicting where the widening gap between America and its allies will lead us all, including the US.
Some hopes are now being pinned on a possible change of position by Trump due to the midterm elections, and then on a Democratic presidential victory in 2028, as such key events that could turn back time and restore trust on both sides.
Of course, there is no such magic key and such hopes are misplaced.
Even if Trump’s domestic political project, the infamous MAGA, is somehow halted or rather dismantled in the coming years, the underlying issues, from immigration to the culture war, will remain and worsen. The possibility of another MAGA resurgence will remain for many years to come.
America’s foreign partners, now having a real taste, through the Greenland issue, of how a ruthless version of the US might behave, will never return to pre-Trump “business as usual” when it comes to US alliances, no matter what.
Their newfound determination to reduce reliance on the US military for defence, for example, and to build more sovereign capabilities is now a permanent fact of life in European politics.
It may take a long time, it may cost a lot and it may never really work, but the new fundamental reality is that no one can rely on the US in the long term to provide the “uninsured” for their own shortcomings and failures.
The particularly worrying nature of the present geopolitical moment comes from the fact that two major forces are now at work simultaneously and reinforcing each other: the new US foreign policy of the second Trump administration, and the accelerating disintegration of the “rules-based” framework of institutions and laws that has largely underpinned the post-1945 world order.
Where is the New Order headed?
There are three general scenarios:
1. In the first scenario, which we can call “Spheres of Influence,” we would see a gradual, de facto division of the planet between the major military powers – the US, China and Russia, depending on the strength and reach of their armed forces.
A soft, weakened Europe would have little military relevance at this critical time, regardless of how much it spends on defence. Its military problem is a social and cultural one, the result of decades of sugar-sweetened pacifism.
There will be no “world system” or any kind of formal regulation governing the interactions of major powers.
The new tripolar world will emerge after a prolonged period of turmoil and war, as a practical equilibrium in many parts of the globe, where none of the three major powers (USA-Russia-China) can exercise exclusive control.
This global equilibrium would generally be unstable and prone to further military conflicts arising from conflicting interests in key locations, but crises would be resolved through pragmatic, transactional diplomacy, at least for a time until one of the major powers can muster the means to expand the boundaries of its sphere of influence.
The fundamental assumption in this scenario is the primacy of military power, also used for economic coercion, and which would be exercised in a manner that would be increasingly free from any of the constraints in place since the Second World War.
2. The second scenario, “Power Agreement,” is reminiscent of the so-called Congressional System negotiated primarily in Vienna in 1815 that stabilized Europe after the Napoleonic Wars and avoided large-scale war on the continent for a hundred years.
Broadly speaking, we would have a conservative and repressive system designed to prevent revolutions and unrest and provide stability along clearly negotiated lines.
The ethos of such an arrangement is contrary to the “values” that the West, especially the modern EU, has embraced in recent decades.
But for that very reason it seems to fit our times quite well.
This impression is reinforced by the idea of a new “Core 5” (C5) group of major powers—the US, China, Russia, India, and Japan—reportedly included in the unpublished, expanded version of the US National Security Strategy.
The C5 seems to be little more than an alternative to the G7, which is a rather general coordination mechanism.
The new format seems designed to allow for meaningful major power negotiations in the old tradition of Vienna during the Holy Alliance era.
Again, “Europe” would have no place at the top table, as it is neither a coherent actor nor a serious, autonomous military force.
Of course, the problem with the Joint Forces scenario is that it relies on a formal, clearly negotiated settlement of all outstanding issues, that is, on serious diplomacy that requires skill, patience, and political sensitivity, as well as a large dose of shared interests among the major leaders.
Purely for practical reasons, this kind of future seems unlikely to materialize anytime soon, and certainly not under President Trump.
3. The third scenario focuses on the “Return of Empire” and classical imperial politics, in a real, substantive way, with colonial practices, not as a metaphor or as a substitute for so-called “corporate neo-imperialism” or other similar concepts.
In recent years there has been growing interest in imperialism as a possible successor to the era of “liberal democracy,” which, on a historical scale, was a short-lived aberration.
We seem to be regressing to pre-constitutional, even medieval, patterns of political behavior. Regardless of the deeper reasons that push History back to an imperial-type power, this order of things seems to fit perfectly with the trends now unfolding in world affairs.
A world that operates on the basis of imperial logic has little room for nationalism or even “statehood,” while sovereignty and legitimacy can hardly stand alongside the invocation of law or the constitution.
We have already come a long way on this path.
In his speech before the invasion in 2022, Putin categorically rejected the very idea of Ukraine’s statehood and made it a central reason for his attack on the country. Trump has given ample evidence of his low regard for the sovereignty of other countries, whether enemies or allies, Venezuela or Denmark.
And of course the EU was designed from the start as an anti-nationalist project whose ultimate goal is to dissolve the sovereignty of its member states in the European Superstate of the Eurofederalist fantasy.
All of these entities would be more effective for their own purposes, operating in an overtly imperial manner rather than trying to “keep up the pretense” under the now old order.
Once imperial authority is restored, disconnected from the burdens and constraints imposed by the largely communist-funded decolonization movements after World War II, and from the UN “rules” system, then all sorts of new solutions will become available to a variety of problems that plague the West (and beyond) today: from migration flows to access to resources.
In conclusion, it is now time for all people to focus more intensely, not only on how to “navigate” the current geopolitical moment, but, above all, on what the new destination of the new society they are preparing could be.
