Those of you who read this blog regularly will recognize this analysis by JV Last since it’s one that I’ve been discussing ever since Trump won back in 2016. This was not inevitable but the writing was on the wall from the beginning:
We are witness to something rare in human history: Abdication by the leader of the global order.
We have seen empires fall and civilizations crumble. But we’ve almost never seen a people renounce their leadership of the world—all at once, in full public view. That is what has happened in the 365 days since January 20, 2025.
Here’s what comes next.
The blinding of Five Eyes. The UKUSA intelligence sharing agreement—informally known as Five Eyes—has been in danger since Tulsi Gabbard was appointed director of national intelligence. But we’ve gone further than the possibility of having a Russia sympathizer atop the U.S. intelligence community: America’s allies now understand that we are—at best—a strategic competitor to Canada and the United Kingdom and at worst a threat to the other English-speaking countries. The days of intelligence sharing between America and our former allies are drawing to a close.
The death of NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was conceived as a way to tame Europe. By establishing the United States as the strategic counterweight to the continent, NATO (a) held the Soviets in check but also (b) removed the need for Germany to re-arm at a scale sufficient to tip the local military balance and menace its neighbors.
NATO is now a zombie organization. America has progressed from unreliable ally to overt threat to European sovereignty. Europe will re-arm. There is no longer any question on this point.
The new nuclear age begins. The world’s three largest nuclear powers are now expansionist predator states. This leaves the lesser nuclear powers no choice but to create their own umbrellas while buying time for smaller allies to join the nuclear club. Germany, Poland, and Canada will acquire nuclear weapons. So will Japan. Sweden, Australia, and South Korea may develop nuclear capabilities as well.
Europe + China. The Chinese communist regime is authoritarian. It does not adhere to the rule of law in any meaningful way. But while it is ambitious, it is stable, and it understands that stability is its biggest advantage. China does not threaten Europe as acutely as Russia and the United States do, and Europe needs some stability undergirding the next world order. Europe will draw closer to China and supplant the United States as China’s main trading partner.
Ukraine will join Europe. As Europe rearms it will need Ukraine’s defense industrial base; therefore it will draw Ukraine into its collective security arrangement (the EU’s, not NATO’s) once the Russo-Ukraine war draws to a close.
Greenland will become disputed territory. Greenland is about to become, like Crimea or Kashmir or the little islands in the South China Sea, disputed territory. The Republican party has made an unmistakable, irrevocable territorial claim on Greenland. There are only two possible ways to resolve this question.
There is much more at the link and I urge you to click over if you have a sub or get one if you have the means. I think many of the former conservatives are the most clear-eyed about what Trump is doing to us on the world stage right now and their alarm is palpable.
Also read this one (gift link) from Robert Kagan in the Atlantic. An excerpt:
Americans are entering the most dangerous world they have known since World War II, one that will make the Cold War look like child’s play and the post–Cold War world like paradise. In fact, this new world will look a lot like the world prior to 1945, with multiple great powers and metastasizing competition and conflict. The U.S. will have no reliable friends or allies and will have to depend entirely on its own strength to survive and prosper. This will require more military spending, not less, because the open access to overseas resources, markets, and strategic bases that Americans have enjoyed will no longer come as a benefit of the country’s alliances. Instead, they will have to be contested and defended against other great powers.
None of this had to happen. People didn’t like the old man and the Black lady and the price of eggs was just too high. They ignored everything else he and his henchmen were saying. It’s was all there — Trump addled mind, his unquenchable thirst for vengeance and monuments to himself, the utter depravity of his Project 2025 and GOP leaders’ craven cowardice were all on display. Why would anyone think that the man who could not accept his loss in 2020 and incited an insurrection to overturn it would be anything but a tyrant?