And so we are in a new era where by and large international relations aren’t going to be determined by rules and multilateral institutions. They’re going to be determined by strong men and deals.
21 February 2025 – – Yesterday I posted a piece about the death of the old world order, a short summary of a much longer piece by Valeriy Pekar, the Ukrainian political analyst. I only had the Ukrainian version but one of my Ukrainian colleagues produced a summary in English. A translation of the full piece is in the works.
Pekar lays out how the world order based on rules, agreements, and values no longer exists. It was never perfect, but it functioned – until now. In short:
Explaining its collapse requires a separate analysis, and that is coming. But for this piece my point is that developed countries benefited from it, while developing ones sought to dismantle it. At some point, these developing nations – led by China – began catching up. Seeing this, the strongest developed nation, the U.S., decided to shift from preserving the old order to actively dismantling it. That’s why the American people elected Trump – he is not an anomaly but the embodiment of this trend.
And so we are in a new era where by and large international relations aren’t going to be determined by rules and multilateral institutions. They’re going to be determined by strong men and deals. I think of the Yalta Treaty at the end of 1945, where three strong men (as they were then) on behalf of the big countries, the strong countries, decided the fate of small countries.
I think that’s Donald Trump’s mindset, and it certainly is Putin’s mindset. It’s Xi Jinping’s mindset. It’s not Europe’s mindset. But that’s the world we’re going into for a whole set of reasons. We are not going back to the one we had before. As I have noted before, in the very short history of mankind, we know that all civilizations adapt, die or are reborn. As will ours. But fodder for a much more detailed post to come.
The civilization we had before was based on the unipolar moment where America had both the means and the will to assert itself across the world. The U.S. created what we came to call “globalization”, with an international security structure. But now the U.S. is a significantly smaller player relative to others than it was.
And of course American will. Its will to be that person has diminished. It still remains a prodigious country, and you underestimated America at your peril. But its ability to make rules across the world – that’s not there.
Now what we are seeing are “deals”. We are seeing a conversation about spheres of influence and I think the only people who haven’t woken up to this reality is Europe. But there’s an entry ticket to this conversation. And sadly Europe does not have it. It is not soft power or values which Europe has in abundance.
It is hard power and that is the category challenge for Europe. How does it develop that to get itself a seat in this conversation. It does not have that power, and this will embolden Putin to continue to do what he does.
I don’t know whether Donald Trump actually buys the Russian line, but I think the Russians probably think he does. And I think that significantly diminishes his leverage. We saw this happen in Afghanistan where he gave away the biggest concession before we even started to talk, to negotiate. He gave Biden no cards to play other than to withdraw. And then blame Biden for the disastrous withdrawal.
It’s a most strange “art of the deal”. Zelensky and Trump have their own way, own agenda. Zelensky has no choice but to respond when he was accused of lacking democratic legitimacy. And Trump is notoriously thin-skinned and they’ve got into this spat. But I do not think we should read too much into it. These negotiations are at a very early level, and they will always be performance driven. Because it’s Trump, of course.
That makes it highly complicated. And Russia took advantage and went “maximal” to the point that they may even have overreached. But it’s going to be very, very hard for Trump to cut through this in a way that produces anything that isn’t an abject humiliation.
The issue is that Trump and Putin are talking about different things. So Trump thinks this is about territory, characteristically as a real estate guy. To him it’s about land – giving land to Russia and return for peace.
But it’s not about territory. And Putin said it’s about sovereignty. Putin was super clear when he started this war that the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign and free country was an unacceptable afront to Russian security. He will not stop until Ukraine isn’t a country anymore.
And that is a completely different conversation.
And there is much more. There’s the request for Europe to gut NATO, in effect, by putting constraints on its presence in Eastern Europe and going back to previous borders in 1997. This is well out of scope. That is stuff that Trump has clearly not thought about – but you are instantly forced into it.
Then Russia came out and said it wouldn’t accept Western troops in Ukraine. Of course they said that. They are determined that Ukraine should be an undefended basket case, while the West is talking about “security guarantees” as a necessary endgame.
It all feels like fundamentally irreconcilable problems.
As a European it’s a massive wake up call, whatever you think about this. All the smoke and dust and mirrors and complexity means nobody knows how it is going to end. But Europe knows it is fucked unless it does something tangible.
But one thing I know for certain is that Europe will own more of this at the end, no matter what happens, than it did at the beginning.
And let’s not exaggerate but let’s be honest. The Russian army has performed reasonably well in Ukraine. But it’s not going to march into Warsaw tomorrow. But nor should we obscure the fact that this will be hugely emboldening, and over time the Russians will re-build their capabilities. The reason we should not be that worried is Europe is 10 times richer Russia. It absolutely has the capability to build up the necessary military forces to resist this.
But if it doesn’t do that, then yes, this is the stuff of nightmares.
Yes, yes, yes. It is complicated. Byzantine complicated. Trump is not wrong about everything. Many states were free riding in Europe and this needs to be sorted out. And you need to explain to Trump why giving away Ukraine as a country and giving away its sovereignty would be a devastating mistake. Trump had once said Putin should not be allowed to be seen to win. He seems to understand that as a concept, although I accept that his tone has changed over the last few days.
And you need to play the “fiasco card”. He was quite complicit in Afghanistan, even though he pinned it on Joe Biden. He can’t own a fiasco like that. And then think of the example this sets for Xi Jinping sitting just across from Taiwan. All of this goes straight into Xi Jinping’s mind.
But most important: this is a huge psychological moment for Putin. He’s been waiting for years for Trump to get in. And if Trump actually turns out not to be the opportunity the Russians expect, they don’t have another plan. Although as I write this, I think he always has a plan.
The worst part? It will be a huge tragedy for people who will be left behind the frozen front line. We will deal with it. It will be a brutal morality play, as all wars are.
But if we do a deal at any cost, and the U.S. decides to just get out, and gives the whole thing to the Europeans, that will trigger a horror of a horrible problem. And Europe is simply not equipped.
