Old Global Order Is Over

Feb 24 2025 The Guardian

There is a clear Trump doctrine. Those who can’t see it won’t have a say in reshaping the world

The sooner the US’s former friends realise the old global order is over, the sooner they can organise to regain power and agency.

… a Trump doctrine is emerging, most sharply in foreign policy. It has clear features, contours and a sort of unified theory of conflict. First, it is transactional, particularly when it comes to warfare in which the US is playing a role. Nothing has a history or any objective sense of right and wrong. Time starts with Trump, and his role is to end things, ideally while securing some bonus for the US.

That upside is the second feature of the Trump doctrine: financialisation, or the reduction of politics to how much things cost, what is the return and how it can be maximised.

… From the Gaza war, some sort of real estate deal can be salvaged. In Ukraine, a proposal for almost four times the value of US assistance so far in minerals is like the stripping of a distressed company by a new investment manager trying to recoup the funds disbursed by predecessors.

The third feature is the junking of any notions of “soft power” – something that is seen as expensive, with questionable benefits that are abstract and unquantifiable.

… Where others saw soft power, Trump sees quagmires.