C_Clayton_Jones
Diamond Member
As great powers abandon international law with impunity, Europe must unite or risk fragmentation and subordination.
āAn admittedly imperfect international legal regime for the maintenance of international peace and security, established in the wake of the Second World War, is rapidly giving way to an unstable, violent and fundamentally amoral world order reminiscent of the nineteenth century, composed of shifting political alliances, competing spheres of influence and powerful states largely free to pursue their interests unhindered by normative or institutional constraints.
[ā¦]
The costs of Hobbesian disorder
Even for the United States, the worldās foremost military and economic power, the likely costs of the new Trumpian world orderāin reality a condition of Hobbesian disorderāare far from negligible, whether in terms of heightened insecurity, the need for increased defence spending or less stable trading relations with other countries. Robert Kagan has warned that āAmericans are entering the most dangerous world they have known since World War IIā¦ with multiple great powers and metastasizing competition and conflictā.ā
The stability and prosperity the United States brought to Europe ā Western Europe in particular ā after the Second World War allowed nation-states once constantly subject to armament and war to focus their efforts instead on economic growth and development.
That stability is now gone, the consequence of Trumpās reckless, irresponsible doctrine of conflict and chaos, where Western Europe is now forced to return to armament and war at the expense of peace and prosperity.
āAn admittedly imperfect international legal regime for the maintenance of international peace and security, established in the wake of the Second World War, is rapidly giving way to an unstable, violent and fundamentally amoral world order reminiscent of the nineteenth century, composed of shifting political alliances, competing spheres of influence and powerful states largely free to pursue their interests unhindered by normative or institutional constraints.
[ā¦]
The costs of Hobbesian disorder
Even for the United States, the worldās foremost military and economic power, the likely costs of the new Trumpian world orderāin reality a condition of Hobbesian disorderāare far from negligible, whether in terms of heightened insecurity, the need for increased defence spending or less stable trading relations with other countries. Robert Kagan has warned that āAmericans are entering the most dangerous world they have known since World War IIā¦ with multiple great powers and metastasizing competition and conflictā.ā
The stability and prosperity the United States brought to Europe ā Western Europe in particular ā after the Second World War allowed nation-states once constantly subject to armament and war to focus their efforts instead on economic growth and development.
That stability is now gone, the consequence of Trumpās reckless, irresponsible doctrine of conflict and chaos, where Western Europe is now forced to return to armament and war at the expense of peace and prosperity.
