World Order

The liberal world order is under threat from its principal architect: the United States.

In an op-ed recently published in the Hill, I write about what democracy in retreat and authoritarianism on the march mean for the future of the liberal world order. President Xi Jinping’s brazen gambit to perpetuate his unchecked rule has dashed Western dreams that global economic integration will inexorably democratize China. But that nation’s descent into despotism is just one example of a global authoritarian turn that jeopardizes the liberal international order. Indeed, that order risks crumbling entirely, as assaults on liberal democracy extend to the West itself. Read the full op-ed here.

In an op-ed recently published in the Hill, I contrast President Donald J. Trump’s transactional and cynical diplomacy with President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, which turn one hundred today. One year into his presidency, Donald Trump’s worldview is clear. He has abdicated global leadership and renounced the international order that America made. His purely transactional, nakedly cynical diplomacy rejects longstanding U.S. support for collective security, multilateral trade, and democracy. How different from the idealistic Woodrow Wilson, the prophet of internationalism who issued his famous blueprint for a liberal world order, the Fourteen Points, exactly a century ago. Wilson had reluctantly taken the nation to war in April 1917. But once the United States was engaged, he renounced traditional war aims, insisting that the nation pursue a new world order informed by American principles. Read the full op-ed here.  

In a new CFR Expert Brief, I list the ten global summits to watch in 2018. Is President Donald J. Trump’s America First approach to foreign policy compatible with international cooperation? That question will become even more prominent in 2018, as world leaders gather for ten pivotal meetings. Collectively, these summits will reveal whether the Trump administration’s first year was an aberration or the start of a post-American world. Read the full Expert Brief here.