The era of American diplomatic excellence has ended. This is not a rhetorical claim; it is a reality that is unfolding and deteriorating. As veteran American diplomat Charles Freeman puts it: “We wield threats, harassment, sanctions, naval forces, and bombs, yet we neglect the subtle art of persuasion and genuine understanding.” The first sign of this diplomatic decline is the erosion of the order that the US established. An order in which the US was the master of its craft, setting and enforcing the rules; an order in which the US saw itself as the leader of the free world against the communist Eastern Bloc, creating a binary of insiders and outsiders. Nonetheless, even in this self-made and self-serving order, it was still significantly challenged by the non-aligned bloc or the East led by the Soviet Union. In this order, the ultimate aim was to preserve the dominance and superiority of the United States, which was achieved by various means. These included: the absence of a rival state, the absence of an alternative order, the monopoly of legal interpretation in international regimes and organizations, the cohesion of the Western alliance and dependent countries, and of course, the universal liberal ideology that shaped the rules of the game and influenced other actors.
This order is collapsing for various reasons and we are seeing a shift from the American world order to the international order or the global community. Revisionist powers like China and Russia refuse to abide by American diplomacy. The Security Council and the United Nations are becoming a counterweight to the unilateral power of the American hegemony. The international system and the global community have altered the balance of power that prevailed for over three decades after the Soviet collapse. In this order, the Americans and their allies, the West, invaded, occupied, and bombed wherever they pleased. They used medicine, oil, and the economy as weapons to overthrow or coerce non-aligned regimes. They relied on the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Funds to pressure changes and developments in their favour.
The United States hastened its own decline by imposing its self-made order on the international community. The breakdown of orders usually involves scattered wars and new fronts; wars that the world order’s superpower cannot stop or prevent diplomatically. In this situation, we are not only nearing the end of the American century but also the end of 500 years of Euro-Atlantic dominance. We are moving from a unified order to a “puzzle order”. The puzzle systems are based on new alliances and decentralized nationalism, and left-wing ideas are gaining popularity among the public. The public pressure and the lack of legitimacy of the world order leave it without defenders or put them in the minority within the countries.
This situation gives rise to new discourses in the foreign policy of countries. Discourses that stem from resisting more than half a century of ideological indoctrination that is reaching its end. In this discourse of resistance to American hegemony, we see the rise of non-Atlantic-non-Trumpist nationalism; regionalism based on good neighbourliness; strategic independence policy for Europe and countries like Saudi Arabia or Turkey and its domino effect; and new economic cooperation that rejects the sanctions and weapons economy. The growth of organizations like BRICS and China’s power reflects the emergence of global alternatives to the current order and the shift to the international order rather than the global order.
The US has lost its grip on the world order and the centrifugal forces. It can neither stop nor end wars. It can neither influence nor defeat its rivals diplomatically. The US is now a spoiler, a player that ruins the game because it cannot accept its fading glory.
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