In a latest article for Foregin Affairs, Mark Leonard makes that argument that America’s main position in the world order is fading. He discusses his argument with NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben.

Transcript

DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, HOST:

As President Trump pursues new tariffs and disparages worldwide organizations, a new actuality is rising when it comes to how nations deal with one another and deal with conflicts. The world’s U.S.-led, rules-based order is fading, and that’s a scary truth, given the quantity of conflicts around the world and main points that want to be addressed, like local weather change. That’s the argument Mark Leonard makes in a latest essay in Foreign Affairs. He’s the cofounder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and he joins me now from London. Welcome, Mark.

MARK LEONARD: Lovely to be with you.

KURTZLEBEN: Now you warned that the world’s rules-based order is altering. Before we dive into your argument, I need to ask, how would you describe what that world order has seemed like and what has been good about it?

LEONARD: Well, Henry Kissinger said that world order depended on two issues. One is a set of guidelines which all of the large powers are keen to reside with. They might not love them, but they will put up with them. And the other is a stability of energy which permits these guidelines to be enforced. And if we look at the last 80 years or so, there was a rules-based order, which was developed firstly within the West and then after the finish of the Cold War, it unfold more extensively, and tons of other nations took half in it. And the U.S. was its essential sponsor.

But the large shift, I think, was the second coming of President Trump, who then launched a revolution against this order that America created and informed a new story about American historical past and said that truly America, rather than benefiting from this order, was one of the greatest victims of it.

KURTZLEBEN: Right. And you also write in the piece that this – that the order had been eroding to some diploma before Trump’s second time period. But it does sound like you’re saying that Trump has acted as an accelerant of types. Is that a truthful approach of placing issues? Or how would you describe how this second time period has actually modified issues?

LEONARD: I think Trump has been a large accelerant of it because he’s made a bonfire of tons of completely different establishments, has withdrawn the U.S. from the World Health Organization, from tons of completely different components of the United Nations. He’s made it clear that he would not believe in the World Trade Organization. But even more dramatic than that has been the approach that he’s informed NATO members that if they do not spend enough, he won’t defend them. He’s threatened to annex the territory of Denmark by saying that he desires to get maintain of Greenland.

KURTZLEBEN: Right. It would have been unthinkable before him.

LEONARD: Even in the creativeness of science fiction writers and folks like that, you would not – you know, these would not have been credible story strains.

KURTZLEBEN: However, the U.S. could get an solely completely different chief after the 2028 elections, and also on that notice, any quantity of other nations’ leaders could change. Could any of that cease or at least sluggish down the altering of this established order?

LEONARD: The truth that Donald Trump has not just been elected once but twice means that it’s irresponsible not to hedge against that occurring again and at least take certain precautions and make yourself less dependent on the United States than you were beforehand.

But the other shift, I think is within American tradition because I think Donald Trump, in some methods, is channeling how a lot of Americans really feel. There aren’t that many folks in the American political area who think that it’s proper that America goes back to being the world’s policeman, to defend a lot of these international establishments which are fairly costly. People proper across the spectrum do think that nation-building at residence is more necessary than being the chief of a international system.

KURTZLEBEN: I need to end with this. You write in your essay that you’ve spoken to a quantity of world leaders. I’m curious, what issues do they share with you, and what are you advising them to do?

LEONARD: My type of essential recommendation to completely different leaders is that they want to expect the surprising and therefore – rather than relying on predictable order and making an attempt to protect that order. And they want to be versatile. They want to think on their ft. They want to have tons of completely different relationships with completely different gamers, and they want to be higher at defending themselves and to think about safety in a much wider approach. So it’s not just about tanks and planes and missiles, but everything in our lives can be turned into a weapon against us. So you want to think about meals safety and well being safety and cybersecurity. And you want to think in a much form of wider approach about the various things which are half of our on a regular basis lives but which are very, very fragile and how to make them less fragile. And that is fairly a bewildering change of mindset.

KURTZLEBEN: That’s Mark Leonard, cofounder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. His piece, “The Abandoned Order: Learning To Live In A Post-American World,” can be discovered in Foreign Affairs. Thank you so much, Mark.

LEONARD: Thanks. It was nice speaking to you.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOMMY GUERRERO’S “BY THE SEA AT THE END OF THE WORLD”)

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