The America of today is built upon a foundation erected 80 years ago in the wake of the most devastating conflict the world has ever seen. For decades, America has reaped the rewards of that great victory, but a foundation laid eight decades ago is bound to crack, crumble and mangle. Just because one hasn’t sensed something wrong until recently — or at all — does not mean that all is well.
Many Americans today, particularly those who subscribe to a neoliberal or unipolar understanding of geopolitics, would point to the first and second Trump administrations as the cause of the “rules-based international order” that previously governed relations between friend and foe. Alas, this is a misguided perception.
Rather, it stems from hubris after America’s victory in the Cold War. Many policymakers, rightly or wrongly, surmised that if America could vanquish the Soviet Union, it could play God with the world order as it was. Sometimes this led to useful and important policy, but over time America became overindulgent.
The 2003 Iraq War is often regarded as the beginning of the gradual decline of an American-led order. There is some truth to this. But I would regard it more as an acute symptom of the larger problem of “hubris.” So was the 2007/2008 financial crisis. While America scrambled to save its markets and stabilize its economy, countries outside the Old World, particularly Australia, Canada and those across East Asia, were able to recover fiscally in a relatively short period of time and/or fundamentally restructured their geopolitical relationship with the United States.
The Great Recession meant that Africa, the Middle East and Asia now looked toward China as an economic alternative. Two questions related to this shift often spark the most intense debate among international relations scholars: Did America inadvertently cause the rise of China? And is China a peer power to America?
The answer to both of these questions is more complicated than what some would suggest. The admittance of China to the World Trade Organization was a mistake insofar as America thought that the rising great power in the form of the People’s Republic of China would play within the rules of an American-organized system. Obviously, this future was not realized. However, China had expanded its global reach and trading relationships well before admittance to the WTO in 2001. Under Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, China rapidly industrialized, becoming the centre of large-scale, low-cost production. Though the WTO served as a means of legitimizing China’s rise, the lack of WTO accession likely would not have fundamentally changed the result we see today.
If you look at macro- and micro-level statistics on America’s economic and military strength relative to China, there is very little doubt about America’s preponderance of power. But these numbers discount the extensive diplomatic outreach Beijing has embarked upon throughout the Global South, shifting markets from the United States toward China. It seems as if America has completely surrendered in trying to build economic relationships with developing countries. For many, China has become a strong alternative to the United States. This is not a statement of opinion but an observation of reality. The United States is still the most powerful country on the planet and serves as a symbol of prosperity for many, but it would be foolhardy to think it can maintain the same system it has operated under for 80 years. Many think that once the present administration fades away, that all will return to normal. It will not.
For middle powers — like Australia, Canada and those pre-eminent members of the European Union — China is not the alternative. In January, Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney, whom I have my differences with on policy, correctly diagnosed the state of the international order at a speech in Davos:
“But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons,” he said. “Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot ‘live within the lie’ of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”
In other words, China and the United States have both engaged in a programme of economic warfare that has, with intent or not, had the effect of forcing those “lesser” powers into submission.
China is a newer power with a different political system than the United States — one that I feel is wrong for the world — but one that has not yet been meaningfully strained. Many states thus seem to be willing to roll the dice. America does not have the luxury of infancy. If America wants to preserve its international strength, not in hard power but in soft power, it needs to recognize that the old regime is in the twilight of its long and great history. It cannot be saved in the same form, but for it to be changed, Americans need to realize that the world is moving away from them — not because of President Donald Trump but because of a decades-old hubris that transcends party lines.
In the meantime, middle powers must take and are taking a third path: one of cooperation with one another. “Realpolitik” is finally back in their lexicon. And thank goodness for that. Most states have now learned that anchoring oneself to a great power naturally leads to predation and subordination when the great power begins to decline.
As Carney cited a version of the Thucydides Trap, so will I. The rise of youthful adversary strikes fear in the heart of the chief who has long reigned over his dominion. Though he controls a vast empire, he himself is weak and frail; he does not command the respect he once had. Thus, he will lash out and eat his own to preserve his own strength — or the image of his own strength — as long as possible. Those who are not consumed by his greed will flee. Soon enough he will be the only one left in his kingdom. I fear that this is the present course that the United States is taking.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but neither was it extinguished in a night.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
Luke Montalbano ’27 is an opinion editor and writer. He is from Vancouver, Canada and is majoring in Government and minoring in History. On campus, Luke is a Dickey Center War and Peace Fellow, the Co-President of the Federalist Society of Dartmouth, the President of the American Conservation Coalition of Dartmouth and President of the John Quincy Adams Society.
