When Donald Trump walked into the White House for the first time eight years ago, much of the world’s foreign policy establishment braced itself for a turbulent ride. He had campaigned on tearing up agreements, questioning the value of old alliances, including NATO, and demanding that allies pay their “fair share.” His language was raw and transactional, cutting against decades of carefully scripted diplomacy that had sustained the postwar international order.
Today, the tremors of his transactionalism still can be felt much stronger. Even while Joe Biden briefly sought to placate allies with rhetoric like “America is back,” the global system has been unsettled in ways that may prove irreversible. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the frictions in NATO, and the questioning of America’s commitment to defending its partners have all signalled that the era of unchallenged American dominance may be drawing to a close.
For many, this raises an uncomfortable question – are we living through the era that will lead to the disintegration of the Western-led world order? And if so, what comes next?
The erosion of trust
For decades, the strength of America’s alliances rested not only on its military might but also on its reliability. European states, Japan, South Korea and others could plan their security strategies with the assumption that Washington would honour its commitments.
Now in his second term, Trump has upended that presumption. He has treated alliances like business deals, often reducing them to the language of debts and payments. NATO, in his view, was not a collective security pact rooted in shared values but a club in which America was being fleeced. “They owe us money,” he said repeatedly of European allies, collapsing complex defence spending targets into the vocabulary of delinquent accounts.
This rhetoric went beyond bluster limited to his political gatherings. Trump froze aid, threatened withdrawals, and even hinted at pulling the US out of NATO altogether. According to reporting in The Guardian, European diplomats privately feared that the US president’s disdain for the alliance could break it apart from within.
For Ashok Swain, professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, the consequences of Trump’s actions are profound -- “What Trump did was strip away the illusion that alliances were sacred. He forced the world to see that America sees its commitments as negotiable — and that has left scars. Even if Biden temporarily reassured, the sense of permanence is gone.”
The impact was visible in Europe’s debates on “strategic autonomy.” French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of NATO becoming “brain dead,” a phrase first reported in The Economist and echoed widely in European coverage. Germany began to re-examine its long-standing dependence on the US nuclear umbrella. The EU initiated fresh conversations about whether it could act as a security actor in its own right. The idea that America was an indispensable nation has been shaken.
Transactional chaos
If anything, the world's existing order is feeling the fresh waves of transactional chaos created by Trump. The liberal international order that once sustained in part by defenders willing to gloss over Washington’s own violations, now appears to be shaking. From Vietnam to Iraq, the US itself has disregarded international law. For decades, American leaders justified interventions with fancy rhetoric about democracy, stability, and rules.
Trump, At least, deserves credit for abandoning that script. He has been nakedly transactional, openly admitting that his interests lay in what America could extract in cash, contracts, or prestige. He has praised authoritarian leaders, admired strongmen, and framed US troops overseas not as guardians of collective security but as mercenaries protecting allies who had failed to pay.
As The New York Times reported in 2018, Trump privately questioned why American soldiers should die for Montenegro, a NATO ally. To many in Europe, this was a shocking window into how fragile Article 5 might be under his presidency.
“Trump’s transactionalism,” notes Swain, “wasn’t just a change in style. It was a declaration that America was no longer in the business of values or global stewardship. That shift left allies exposed — and adversaries emboldened.”
The results have been revealing. In the Middle East, the US abandoned long-time partners overnight, as seen with the Kurds in Syria. In Asia, Trump’s flirtations with Kim Jong-un left South Korea uncertain of Washington’s reliability. And in Europe, his equivocation on defending NATO members raised the spectre of a fractured security shield.
Biden, during his short stint, attempted to reverse course. His language on Ukraine, NATO unity, and democracy promotion was mostly from the traditional script of diplomacy. But beneath the surface, doubts remained. The Afghan withdrawal — though executed under Biden — was rooted in Trump’s Doha deal with the Taliban. Allies watched in dismay as the world’s most powerful military retreated in chaos, leaving Afghans clinging to planes.
As The Guardian noted in its coverage at the time, European officials were horrified by the scenes in Kabul, describing it as a “geopolitical catastrophe” for the West. The symbolism was devastating -- America’s promises, many witnessed, could collapse overnight.
A “post-Western world”
The question now is whether this marks the dawn of a “post-Western world.”
The phrase has gained currency in recent years, capturing a sense that the institutions, norms, and security arrangements shaped by the US and Europe are no longer hegemonic. China and Russia, though hardly natural allies, have both sought to capitalise on this shift. Beijing has expanded its Belt and Road Initiative, investing in infrastructure that ties dozens of countries more closely to Chinese capital than to Western aid. Moscow, through its invasion of Ukraine, has tested the resilience of Western solidarity and found it simultaneously fragile and enduring.
For Swain, the idea of a post-Western world is no longer hypothetical. “It is already here. The West can no longer dictate outcomes in the way it once did. Look at the Middle East: the US is not the decisive actor. In Africa, Russia and China are filling gaps. And in South Asia, countries like India are playing the field, aligning with the US in some areas and Russia in others. The unipolar moment is gone.”
The war in Ukraine brings this into focus. Western countries rallied behind Kyiv, supplying billions in aid and weapons. But outside Europe and North America, the response was muted. India refused to condemn Moscow, continuing to buy Russian oil. Much of Africa and Latin America remained ambivalent.
As The New York Times reported in March 2023, this divergence revealed a key reality -- while the US and its allies still command immense resources, they are no longer the undisputed centre of global legitimacy.
Lessons from Iraq
The cracks in America’s credibility did not begin with Trump. They stretch back at least to the Iraq war of 2003. Then, too, allies questioned Washington’s reliability — but from a different angle.
The George W. Bush administration justified the invasion with fabricated claims of weapons of mass destruction. When none were found, trust was shattered. The war itself unleashed chaos across the region, destabilising the Middle East in ways still felt today.
“The invasion of Iraq was a turning point,” notes Swain. “It exposed the hypocrisy of a rules-based order where the most powerful could bend rules at will. Trump accelerated the collapse of trust, but the seeds were planted earlier.”
Indeed, many of the arguments America now makes against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — sovereignty, legality, self-determination — were undermined by its own actions in Iraq. This hypocrisy has not been forgotten in the Global South, where many see double standards in Western foreign policy.
Trump, rather than repairing the damage, doubled down by rejecting the very notion of moral leadership. He praised Vladimir Putin, questioned NATO, and even infamously expressed admiration for Saddam Hussein’s efficiency in “killing terrorists.”
America’s double standards appear more exposed under Trump — even if they may have been concealed by his predecessors
Age of insecurity
What does all this mean for global security? Analysts fear a future marked by more frequent, more protracted conflicts. If America is seen as an unreliable partner, regional powers may feel compelled to take matters into their own hands — through arms buildups, nuclear proliferation, or aggressive unilateral actions.
In East Asia, the doubts over US commitment could push Japan and South Korea to reconsider nuclear options. In the Middle East, Gulf states already hedge by cultivating ties with Russia and China, even as they continue to buy American weapons. In Europe, debates over “strategic autonomy” are no longer academic.
“A world without reliable alliances is a more dangerous world. Transactionalism might work in business, but in security it breeds suspicion and escalation. If every country thinks it is on its own, conflicts are more likely to spread and endure,” warns Swain.
The danger is not simply conflict but prolonged instability. The conflicts in Syria and Libya showed how local unrest can metastasise into regional crises when great powers are divided. The US retreat from its role as the global cop creates vacuums — and those vacuums are rarely benign.
Fragile future of alliances
Some argue that Trump’s transactionalism was an aberration, a temporary disruption in an otherwise stable system. But others caution that it reveals deeper structural changes. America’s domestic politics have become increasingly polarised, and foreign policy has become hostage to internal battles.
In reporting by The Guardian earlier this year, European officials admitted that they are already planning for a future in which American leadership is uncertain. They note that preparing for autonomy is not easy -- Europe lacks the military capacity, political will, and unity to fill America’s shoes. But the alternative — continued reliance on a fickle Washington — feels increasingly risky.
An uncertain world
If the postwar order was defined by American leadership, the emerging one is far less clear.
Beijing is waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum but may not yet have many bold partners. Russia is assertive but economically fragile. India is barely past its long fixation on Pakistan. Europe wants to lead but struggles with coherence.
This is the essence of a post-Western world -- no single centre of gravity, but rather multiple competing poles of influence, each with limits. For some, this offers opportunity -- countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America can play powers against each other to extract better deals. For others, it spells danger -- instability, shifting allegiances, and weakened international norms.
The United Nations, once the symbol of collective security, has been paralysed. Its inability to stop Russia’s invasion, to address the wars in Gaza and Sudan, or to respond effectively to climate change has fuelled disillusionment.
“The post-Western world isn’t automatically fairer. It is more fragmented. Without clear norms, without strong institutions, the risks of conflict rise. Trump accelerated that transition, but the forces driving it go deeper,” Swain cautions.
Standing at the sill
The question posed at the start — whether America’s drift from its allies could create a less secure world — does not provide any comforting answers. The evidence reveals it already has. Trump’s transactionalism, layered upon the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan, has shattered the myth of permanence in US alliances. Biden’s brief attempts at repair may not have been enough to undo the damage of Trump’s first term — let alone withstand his return to power.
We are not in a world without the West, but we are in a world where the West no longer rules alone. The door to a post-Western order is ajar, and what lies beyond is uncertain. For some, this represents long-overdue pluralism. For others, it heralds a return to insecurity reminiscent of earlier centuries, when great powers struggled for dominance without clear rules.
What is clear is that the era of automatic reliance on American leadership has ended. The global system is now more fluid, more contested, and more fragile.
“The danger is not just that America steps back. The danger is that no one steps forward. A world without leadership is not stable. And that is the world we are drifting towards,” Swain puts it, distilling the dangers of a fading order.