Since its earliest years, the raison d’état of the United States was forged in a messianic character rooted in Puritanism. This collective consciousness led Americans first toward territorial expansionism and later toward international hegemony. The U.S. arrogated to itself a leading role in the world on behalf of a supposedly elevated social order, claiming responsibility for spreading progress and democracy wherever needed. Based on the belief that the U.S. was divinely ordained to preserve the rights given to humanity by God—equality, liberty, life, and happiness—and to promote democratic ideals, the world tolerated doctrines such as Manifest Destiny, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Roosevelt Corollary as acceptable sources of Washington’s international legitimacy. European countries, which had long resisted American initiatives in Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific, eventually accepted Washington’s supremacy. The two world wars gradually affirmed international consent to U.S. authority—first alongside the Soviet Union in the bipolar era, and later as the sole hegemonic power competing with a once-peripheral China.
U.S. hegemonic legitimacy would not have survived the Cold War without the consent derived from Washington’s adherence to institutions like NATO, the U.N. Security Council, and the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Beyond this institutional consent, the Western bloc believed that U.S. policy truly supported free peoples resisting subjugation by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. The Truman and Eisenhower Doctrines gained authority through wide acceptance, consolidating U.S. leadership in Europe, Latin America, and across the Middle and Far East. Reagan’s determination to reverse American decline by strengthening defences and reclaiming supremacy from Moscow culminated in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. However, the Cold War’s end ushered the U.S. into uncharted waters, ending the legitimacy it had shared with the Soviet Union.
During the Cold War, Washington could cite the risk of Soviet retaliation as a reason to avoid intervention in certain regions. With that threat gone, U.S. leaders faced an unprecedented responsibility: weighing each intervention on its own merits. Should the U.S. defend one state against another’s aggression? Should it intervene when a government oppressed its people? These decisions would reshape America’s international legitimacy and foreign policy, as well as the global order itself.
As the only superpower remaining, the U.S. was left to make difficult choices on how to wield its resources. Inheriting the chaos of the Soviet breakup, Washington advanced a “new world order” based on deterring international aggression. American unilateralism, reinforced by the 9/11 attacks, solidified the U.S.’s “global policeman” role, legitimizing interventions in Iraq, Kosovo, Serbia, the Middle East, Somalia, and Ukraine.
Yet President Donald Trump appears to dismiss the highly interventionist and hegemonic legacy accumulated over the last three decades—seeing it as a costly burden Washington should no longer carry—as well as the world order and international law system built over eighty years. Rather than approaching global affairs as an integrated system, Trump has adopted a fragmented, erratic, and anarchic worldview. This is deeply flawed: the long-standing distinction between internal order and international anarchy cannot sustain itself in today’s interconnected world.
Modern international law seeks to shape social reality both globally and domestically. The current international system reflects not only the power and interests of wealthy states but also the security needs of peripheral nations. All states, regardless of power, yearn for sovereignty, equality, human rights, development, trade stability, and environmental health. In short, both powerful and peripheral nations desire stability, and hegemonic states have a vested interest in promoting it. They benefit the most from global order while shaping the rules that sustain it.
Thus, it is nearly impossible to conceive of a stable new world order under Trump’s actions. Instead of reinforcing U.S. leadership, his steps toward international disaggregation are undermining Washington’s legitimacy. The world still expects the U.S. to lead—even with the rise of Russia, China, and the Global South—because only predictable patterns of state behaviour, rooted in international law and governance, can sustain global stability. Rejecting this system weakens U.S. leadership and undercuts Trump’s stated goal to “make America great again.”
Meanwhile, China is steadily reinforcing its global presence, seeking international consent and legitimacy through adherence to law and diplomacy. Chinese strategists understand that consistent compliance with international law is the key to lasting leadership. States, even in disputes, need the framework of international law for stability, predictability, and reciprocity. This system encourages moderation, cooperation, and reasonable compromise, avoiding destructive confrontations.
International legitimacy and international law—not slogans, morality, or political mottos—are the true instruments through which states pursue strategic objectives. “Making America great again” cannot serve as the basis of U.S. international legitimacy. What made America “great” historically was its hegemonic leadership rooted in diplomacy, adherence to institutions, and respect for international law. American strategists long understood that legitimacy required global consent and integration into the international system.
Trump’s foreign policy, unlike that of China or Russia, ignores the need for international consent. His confrontational stance—seeing enemies even among traditional allies—risks eroding U.S. legitimacy and isolating Washington from the very system it once led.
In the end, the world functions as an integrated system that shapes realities both globally and domestically. Trump’s rejection of this interconnectedness will likely lead to a deterioration of U.S. international legitimacy, leaving the country not as a leader of the Earth, but in opposition to it.
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