The American Foreign Affairs published an analysis saying that there are several indications pointing to a crisis in the world order, heralding the end of the domination of the West led by the United States and the rise of other rival powers.
There are several aspects of the crisis in the global system, including the uncoordinated response to the Corona pandemic, the economic crisis caused by the outbreak of the epidemic, and the return of national policies, writes Alexandre Cole and Daniel Nixon. The closing of borders between countries, all indications of the emergence of a less cooperative and more fragile international system.
She noted that many observers believe that these developments confirm the dangers of the policy of US President Donald Trump, which is based on the slogan "America first" and abandoned his country's role in leading the world and its commitment to promoting a liberal international system.
According to the authors, some analysts believe that after Trump's exit from the White House, the United States is still able to change this situation by restoring the strategies through which it was able to build and maintain a successful international system from the end of World War II until after the Cold War, Thus, the Trump era and the Corona epidemic are only a temporary deviation from the path, rather than a step on the path to permanent chaos.
But they disagree with this analysis. Although the expectations about the American retreat and the transformation in the international system are not new and were not accurate in the past, they are very different this time, as the same factors that contributed to the extension of American hegemony before are driving the process of its disintegration today.
Factors of disintegration
The article pointed out that three factors enabled the formation of a world order led by the United States after the Cold War, the first of which was that Washington had not faced any major global ideological project that could compete with it after the defeat of Communism, and secondly that with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the associated infrastructure of institutions and partnerships There was no alternative for the weak countries to resort to to secure military, economic and political support other than the United States and its Western allies. The third factor is the presence of activists and movements that spread the values that reinforce the liberal system.
These same factors today turned against the United States, and were replaced by a vicious circle that erodes its power. With the rise of great powers such as China and Russia, authoritarian and non-liberal projects are competing with the liberal international system led by America.
Developing countries, and many developed countries, have also been able to search for an alternative sponsor that would obviate them from relying on Western support. There have emerged movements that do not embrace liberal thought and are mostly right-wing, and can act against the liberal international system that was once solid.
In short, according to the authors, it can be said that the United States' hegemony over the world is not only experiencing a decline, but is in a state of disintegration, and its retreat is not a temporary episode, but a permanent situation.
The return of the superpowers.
The extended analysis tried to foresee the features of the new system after the decline of Washington’s hegemony. The most prominent set of data indicates real change, the most important of which is the end of the unipolar world order in which the West consisting of the United States and its allies monopolizes influence and domination after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The authors pointed to several factors that changed the geopolitical landscape and paved the way for changing the global system, including the rise of other great powers that offer a competing perspective of the global system of Western domination, and of a more authoritarian character to weak states, in addition to new regional organizations and un liberal national networks that compete with the influence of the United States, Not to mention the far-reaching transformations in the world economy, the most important of which is the rise of China.
The article concluded that the United States, if it wants to retain some influence of its economic and political model, should work to arrange its internal affairs and re-energize its foreign policy in a manner that guarantees its ability to exert a significant influence on the international system even in the absence of its global hegemony. To succeed in this, Washington must realize that the world is no longer similar to the 1990s and the first decade of this century, and that the era of a unipolar world order is gone forever.