A few days before Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House, the feeling shared by all is that the international balance is going to be upset.
The global dynamic has long been based on common rules and responses by all the countries participating in defining this global balance. Of course, Russia, Turkey, China and a few others did not respect all the instructions. But the stability reflected the willingness of Western countries to continue playing the game.

The risk with Trump’s arrival in Washington is that the United States will move away from the framework that has been defined for a long time. From then on, lacking anchoring, the overall plan could lurch significantly.

The framework to be defined will reflect very diverse issues.

• The first, exacerbated by the return of Donald Trump to the presidency, is the emphasis on the balance of power in the negotiation. This is already perceptible in the announcement of Washington’s attempts to seize power over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.

• The second issue concerns the climate at a time when the average global temperature has exceeded, in 2024, 1.6C above the pre-industrial average. Measures must be taken collectively to deal with it.

• The third dimension is the shift towards a more authoritarian political order and a critique of the liberal order.

Let’s look back at the way this international balance works, which has worked rather well for decades. According to G. John Ikenberry, a professor at Princeton, the rules of the liberal world have been defined around 4 specific elements

• Trade and free trade are mutually beneficial, promoting economic prosperity.
• Institutions promote cooperation and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
• Interdependence between countries promotes cooperation and strengthens its benefits.
• Liberal democracy is suited to cooperation through a political system capable of adapting quickly.

This Wilsonian framework, to promote prosperity, has been very dependent on supranational institutions set up such as the UN, the IMF and NATO.
This international order is not free from errors or dysfunctions. The fall of the USSR had given the USA a feeling of omnipotence, but they got bogged down in the war against Iraq or thought that China would become democratic with the intensity of trade and the increase in individual wealth.

For the rest, Ikenberry draws a world with 3 poles. The Western countries with the US, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, a group in the East with Russia and China and the Global South led by India and Brazil. I will come back very quickly to this approach because it is both fascinating but also very questionable.

Source: Chaire Grands Enjeux Stratégiques Contemporains G. John Ikenberry Link https://bit.ly/3DTF2Q8