The Abandoned Order: Learning to Live in a Post-American World

Foreign Affairs  |  Mark Leonard

The United States is dismantling the rules-based international order it spent decades building, leaving global security and economic systems without a central stabilizing power. Widespread protectionism, internal political retreat in Washington, and cheap drone and missile proliferation are actively undermining traditional power projection, including freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

This institutional collapse forces key allies to alter their posture rapidly as broader security architectures fracture into regional, transaction-driven arrangements. Rather than transitioning into a structured Chinese-led era, the international system faces a prolonged period of disorder driven by systemic fragmentation, uncontrolled crisis contagion, and the aggressive weaponization of supply chain chokepoints. Middle powers and historically protected states like Germany, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea now face growing pressures to seek independent nuclear capabilities within two decades. Furthermore, uncoordinated trade tariffs, volatile commodity pricing spreads, and accelerating de-dollarization threaten to dismantle global economic integration while escalating localized territorial conflicts.

Comment

The reliance on bilateral or minilateral technology-sharing constructs such as AUKUS reveals a fundamental friction between national industrial sovereignty and joint capability delivery. When lead security guarantors pivot toward transactional foreign policy, industrial subsidies and technology transfers within Pillar II encounter severe legislative bottlenecks in Washington. This vulnerability forces secondary participants to subsidize external industrial capacity without receiving binding operational guarantees in return.

A parallel dynamic unfolds across trade architecture, where frameworks like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership operate without American participation. Without US market access acting as the central anchor, participating states establish overlapping bilateral currency swaps and targeted export controls. Consequently, CPTPP signatories like Australia and Japan absorb rising transaction costs and fragmented supply chains rather than enjoying a unified Indo-Pacific market.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If technology transfers under AUKUS Pillar II remain delayed by Washington's regulatory controls, which path are partner nations more likely to pursue — expanding sovereign defense-industrial capacity or forming alternative minilateral security arrangements?

The structural incentives point toward secondary partners pursuing localized minilateral pacts rather than relying solely on unilateral sovereign development. While sovereign capacity building requires prohibitive capital and decade-long development timelines, joining targeted coalitions allows states like Australia to pool niche capabilities and mitigate export control bottlenecks. Consequently, my assessment is that defense procurement in the Indo-Pacific will increasingly favor ad-hoc operational partnerships over single-source alliance dependencies.

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