The decline of the West and the rise of ‘the Rest’ will lead to a new world order

Amitav Acharya

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As Donald Trump rampages through the global economic system with his tariff war and throws the United States’ commitment to NATO into serious doubt, fears – even panic – are mounting about the collapse of world order. Part of the anxiety stems from how suddenly these changes appear to have unfolded. In the aftermath of the 2008 global economic crisis, what was often described as the US-led liberal international order seemed alive and well, though not without challenges.

Leading liberal internationalists believed not only that US primacy would endure, but that the world order it built would, in the words of the Princeton professor John Ikenberry, ‘survive and thrive’, and co-opt even its challengers, like China. Now, Trump’s second presidency gives fresh ammunition to the argument that he is destroying not only the liberal order, but the very notion of world order itself. It would be a mistake, however, to see things in such extremes.

Globalization is not disappearing, but taking a new, eastern turn.

As I argued when he first entered the White House, Trump is not creating this crisis – he is accelerating forces that had already undermined the old order. Yet, any new order emerging from the present crisis will retain some features of the old. For now, some comfort is to be found in the fact that no other country is as yet emulating Trump’s ‘reciprocal tariffs’ or supporting his contempt for multilateralism.

Globalization, too, is not disappearing, but taking a new, eastern turn. Traditional forms of global governance were already growing rusty. Now they are being joined by new forms which will become more salient in the post-Trump era. Global governance, however, is not going to disappear or be radically altered.

Beyond the West

Let’s start by challenging the assumption that the fate of world order depends on the US and western global dominance. Many of the key ideas underpinning world order – and the rules and institutions sustaining it – have come from a range of nations and regions, not just the West. These principles include the independence and territorial integrity of states, free trade and freedom of the seas, diplomacy and peace treaties, and moral values and humanitarian norms. Neither the decline of the West nor America’s withdrawal alters this historical reality.