Sometimes you can’t usually obtain what you want.
But if you try maybe
You’ll discover.
You get what you needThe rolling rocks
History has several solutions. Unsurprisingly firm plans can operate on a coin. ” There are years where little happens, and there are days where generations happen”, Vladimir Lenin wrote in 2017, his last year in captivity.
Or, as President Xi Jinping said at the Kremlin’s entrance after a meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2023,” Right now there are changes – the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years. Within reach of the press, President Xi subtly added,” and we are the types driving these changes up”.
We’re talking to you, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, so let’s not beat around the tree. The modifications that President Xi was referring to are the decline of America’s empire method and, along with it, the decline of the rules-based global order.
Every country may be prepared. The savviest players did front-run activities. It was an open invitation to wager on and join the “we” when President Xi said,” We are the people driving these modifications.”
Strong forth to 2025 and styles have just accelerated. In his following name, President Trump insulted weak-armed Panama, threatened to seize Greenland and Canada, and sparked a world trade war.
This is not 4D games, individuals. President Trump is hoping that the scattered pieces will magically arrange themselves in advantageous positions by using whatever remaining National power to blow over the game. It is also pure madness.  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,
In his book And Tomorrow the World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy, Stephen Wertheim tells the story of how, over just a few times preceding Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations and leaders such as President Franklin Roosevelt maneuvered America’s global position apart from uneasiness over foreign entanglements and towards global hegemony.
None of this, however, can be said loudly. As the new posture developed during and after World War II, it had to be buried in euphemisms like “liberal international order” and administered through neutered institutions including the World Bank/IMF ( 1944 ), the United Nations ( 1945 ), NATO ( 1949 ) and even the US Congress.
All of this contradicts the reputation that some foundation fathers hoped to leave behind for the young republic, which was happily separated from a fractured Europe by the Atlantic Ocean. In his farewell target, George Washington reportedly warned against involvement in foreign wars and dilemmas:
Why do we ensn’t we, by interweaving our life with that of any other region of Europe, find peace and prosperity in the shackles of Western passion, rivalry, interest, humor, or capriciousness?
Why forego the advantages of thus peculiar a position? Why abandon our personal quest to conquer foreign soil?
It is our true plan to steer clear of lasting partnerships with any part of the international world, so much, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it, for let me not be understood as worthy of patronizing marriage to existing commitments.
The thinkers and leaders who advocated for American supremacy, in Wertheim’s opinion, were not acting in bad faith; they were also not lobbyists seeking a retirement position at Lockheed Martin. These were men genuinely fearful of a world where fascists controlled the Eurasian landmass. Wertheim writes:
Peace, however, came at an unprecedented price after Germany conquered France and briefly bestrode Europe. If the United States continues to use a hemispheric military posture, it could leave Europe to the worst Europeans and Asia to the worst Asians, totalitarian dictatorships that use industrial modernity to achieve armed subjugation.
After saving Europe and Asia from fascist domination in WWII ( or at least joining mop-up operations in act four ), the US lost no time declaring itself leader of the free world in the long twilight struggle against the Soviet Union. In his famous lengthy telegram, George Kennan wrote:
The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. The adroit and vigilant use of counterforce at a number of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy, is something that can be constrained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence.
Primacy, it turns out, is a hard drug to quit. The US quickly established itself as permanent world leader under the Wolfowitz doctrine after the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union and China, who voluntarily joined the American-led economic system.
The US must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. In non-defense areas, we must take into account the needs of the advanced industrialized countries in a sufficient way to deter them from challenging our leadership or attempting to overturn the country’s established political and economic order. We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.
Around that time, “liberal international order” changed into “rules-based international order.”
After the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, the US updated the Wolfowitz doctrine with the Bush doctrine, an aggressive foreign policy posture that assumed the right to preemptively eliminate – through military means – nascent threats before they fully materialize. George W. Bush said this at West Point’s graduation speech in 2002:
We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our faith in tyrants, who solemnly sign non-proliferation agreements and then systemically violate them.
If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long.
Your leadership in shaping the military will require that it be ready to strike at a moment’s notice in any uncertain area of the world. And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.
The lingering effects of failed military operations brought on by the Wolfowitz/Bush doctrines, which are now viewed negatively by primacists as “isolationism” and are now a thing of the past. Some, like self-proclaimed realist Elbridge Colby, favor a husbanding of resources to specifically contain China – a Sino-only primacist, if you will.
President Trump’s foreign policy has been schizophrenic and incoherent, just like everyone else. Let us not pretend there is a Trump doctrine. No strategy exists. There is no strategy. There isn’t a theory here. He’s just making it up as he goes along, driven by appetites and constrained by resources.  ,
American primacists deliberately reject that the purpose of regional hegemony is to not have to expend resources on the military. Not just George Washington, but the entire country had been well-warned. John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States, urged against searching for “monsters to destroy” in an 1821 speech:  ,  ,
Wherever the standards of freedom and independence have been or will be raised, she will have a heart, benedictions, and prayers. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is well aware that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, even those that represent foreign independence, she would engage herself in all the conflicts of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition that take over the standards of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.
Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, used the term “military industrial complex” for the first time in his 1961 farewell address.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience…. However, we must not ignore its serious implications. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. There is and will continue to be a potential for a disastrous rise in misplaced power.
Hegemonic dynasties coalesced in China specifically to divert resources away from fractious wars and towards public works projects ( for example, the Dujiangyuan water diversion project, the Grand Canal, the Great Wall ).
The PRC dynasty is no exception; it spends less than 2 % of its GDP on defense and receives funding for the South-North Water Transfer project, the Three Gorges Dam, high speed rail, and a national highway system in return.
The “freedom to roam”, popularized by John Mearsheimer, is demonstrably not a universal imperative of regional hegemons. The Ming Dynasty of China famously destroyed the imperial treasure fleet at the height of its power. The American impulse to roam is a legacy of European ( mostly British ) maritime imperialism which has long since outlived its utility, now incurring more costs than benefits.
Russia is challenging NATO in Ukraine, China is challenging China in East Asia, Iran is challenging Iran in the Middle East, and Kim Jong Un is doing something incredible in North Korea. The neglected home front is awash in drugs, obesity, crime and mental illness. America, which has grown sluggish after decades of mindless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, now maintains what little of its predominates through a jumble of multilateral alliances ( G7, NATO, AUKUS, the Quad ).  ,  ,  ,
These alliances are inherently unstable, pitting free riding against buck passing. The US is trying to do global hegemony on the cheap through alliance partners. A rule-based international order is a burdensome responsibility that an overstretched America wants to shift to partners. Meanwhile, alliance partners want to free ride – to enjoy benefits of the rules-based order without chipping in.
America must demonstrate that it will bear all the costs, whether with or without partners, for alliances to remain stable.
As John F. Kennedy promised in his January 1961 inauguration speech, the United States did this for the majority of the post-World War II era:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we promise, and more.
While partners waxed and waned based on shifting domestic politics ( for example, France, the Philippines, Thailand ), America’s resolve had long been assumed, even if erroneously ( for example, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Vietnam 1973, Lebanon 1984, Somalia 1993, Iraq 2011, Afghanistan in 2021 ).
However, as President Trump abandons alliances and expands the reach of rivals, America’s resolve can no longer be assumed. The US is not just trying to pass the buck, it is all but telling Europe that the buck does not stop here. Asia is left in a wrangling mode unsure of what President Trump will say. It could be anything – from an honest-to-god strategic pivot to Asia to trading Taiwan for flattery and a ham sandwich to anything in between. Simply put, we are ignorant.
What everyone does know is that China’s capabilities are growing and, over time, the costs of maintaining America’s position in Asia will rise. And buck passing will increase as a result, and free riders will make uncomfortable choices.