The Ballad of a Fading Empire
Once upon a time, there was a country that stood as the undisputed main character of global affairs. She was the world’s overachieving, slightly overbearing hall monitor—her name? United States of America.
If there was a crisis, you can bet she had policy for it. If there was a war, she was either starting it, ending it, or playing both sides for the fun of it. And if a country even thought about getting nuclear weapons—well, that was grounds for a very stern talking-to (or, depending on her mood, a full-scale military invasion).
America—after many years of never minding her business—finally had a date with destiny. Only this destiny came in the form of an over-tanned, real estate mogul turned reality TV star who had decided that global diplomacy should be run more like a casino. In comes Donald J. Trump, a man who viewed the world less like a stage for careful negotiation and more like a yard sale where everything had to go—alliances, treaties, stability, you name it.
His goal was a simple one: America first, world order last.
And as Trump isolated America from the countries she was monitoring, her dominance began to wane. A tragic tale of a toxic, abusive relationship—as America loved to flirt around and text other countries behind Trump’s back, while he wanted her all to himself.
A tale that I will tell you about during our lesson—but before we get into Trump, his all-in gamble on American isolationism, and how he tried to play this international casino like it was his personal playground, we need to take a few steps back. First, we have some things to clarify before I spill the tea:
What even is world order?
Who made the rules?
And why is Trump so determined to break them?
Lesson 2: World Order
17th century: Europe’s big bar fight
Before we get to Trump’s tango with the world, I must tell you of another story—yes, this is a global affairs inception of sorts. This time, we’re traveling back in time to the seventeenth century, to the disaster that was Europe. It certainly was not the place to be—the entire continent was permeated with wars and disputes. Two simultaneous wars were wreaking havoc upon the old continent:
The Thirty Year’s War was in full swing: the Catholics and the Protestants were beefing over religion, until they ultimately found themselves in a power struggle over European dominance.
The Eighty Year’s War was still going strong: the Dutch Provinces no longer wanted to bend the knee to the Spanish Empire’s political and religious reign.
Europe, at this point, was a chaotic patchwork of overlapping sovereignties. Kings and emperors warred over the same land, popes meddled in politics, and everyone was generally at each other’s throats. There were no real rules—just vibes and violence.
By 1648, after decades of carnage, European leaders finally sat down and agreed they needed household rules. Enter the Peace of Westphalia—the treaty that essentially created modern statehood.
Westphalia introduced radical concepts for its time:
Sovereignty: Kings could now rule their own land without some guy three kingdoms over claiming it just because he felt like it.
Borders became real: The game of “Simon Says I Have the Biggest Army, So This Land is Mine” was no longer accepted. Territory was now legally recognized.
Non-intervention: Meddling in another country’s domestic affairs was largely discouraged. (A rule that certain states struggle with to this day.)
For the first time in history, there was a functioning system of states. A framework. A playbook for diplomacy—one that would influence the way nations interacted with each other for centuries to come. Despite countless wars, revolutions, coups, and imperial escapades, this system somehow survived. Sure, the rules evolved, but the idea remained.
Until, of course, history did what history does best: shift. You see, no world order is eternal, and as the dynamics of who holds power and authority shift, so does the system. The 20th century was no exception—marked by war, reconstruction, and the birth of a new global hegemon: the United States.
America: a star is born
Let’s turn a page on our story book and open up the twentieth century—a time when the U.S. was no longer the quiet kid in the corner, it was now center-stage and calling all the shots.
WWII happens, and America, relatively untouched—see Pearl Harbor—comes out thriving.
The Cold War begins, dividing the world into two main teams:
Team Capitalism (led by the U.S.)
Team Communism (led by the USSR)
Suddenly, the world is divided into two rival spheres of influence, a bipolar system—and these superpowers were balancing each other out.
And then…the USSR collapses: the Soviet economy tanks, the Afghanistan invasion was costly and disastrous, Glasnost and Perestroika backfire, and the Berlin Wall falls.
And just like that, in 1991, the world awoke to a new reality—it had lost its second superpower. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were no more. And for the first time in history, the U.S. stood unchallenged as the sole hegemon, ushering in an era of unipolar dominance.
America frolicked in the rooms of this casino as it pleased, calling the shots as it saw fit, setting the status quoas it wished. And that was the way of the world for the next decades to come.
Globalization flourished showcasing American soft power like never before—think Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street.
Interventionism became rule of law—there’s a problem? America is stepping in.
Military dominance is unquestioned—NATO expands, the Middle East gets “liberated,” and Uncle Sam keeps an eye out on who’s allowed to have nukes.
This, my dear reader, was Pax Americana—a world order built by America, for America.
But it takes only a gust of wind, to bring down a house of cards.
The decline: cracks in the empire
America, drunk on power, made some questionable decisions. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—meant to showcase military dominance—ended up exposing cracks in its hegemony. Resources drained, global goodwill eroded, and emerging powers took notes.
By this point, one thing we know for sure is that no world order is eternal—power shifts with the tides of history. And with cracks on America’s empire exposed, it was only a matter of time before this unipolar order changed once more. It wasn’t long until new central players came to the front—China’s economic ascent, Russia’s geopolitical resurgence, and the growing influence of regional powers—all signaled the slow but steady erosion of U.S. hegemony.
A multipolar world was taking shape, one where Washington’s word was no longer law, and its dominance, no longer absolute.
For this second lesson, my goal was to introduce the concept of world order and how, in today’s time, it is once again shifting. As I sifted through articles, reports, and expert analyses over the past few weeks, one defining actor stood out—not just a participant in this transformation, but as its accelerant. If the erosion of American influence was already in motion, the 45th (and 47th) President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, took a sledgehammer to it.
Trump: the man, the myth, the menace
Before we explore this brand-new world order, we must first understand the man himself in order to grasp his role in reshaping the global stage.
A businessman turned reality TV star, Trump’s entry into politics wasn’t driven by ideology, but by personal ambition, nostalgia for American dominance, and a deep love for spectacle. More than a politician, Trump has always been a brand—built on excess, bravado, and the art of chaos.
His first campaign thrived on populism, tapping into economic anxieties, nationalist sentiment, and the belief that America had been “cheated” by the very global order it once created. Make America Great Again wasn’t just a slogan—it was a promise to restore an era where the U.S. dictated terms to the world without question.
His presidency provided ample warning signs: withdrawals from multilateral agreements, disdain for traditional alliances, and a fondness for strongmen leaders. At the time, these moves were dismissed as recklessness. In hindsight, they were the blueprints for his ultimate vision—an America disengaged from global leadership, playing by its own rules, and letting the rest of the world figure things out. He wanted something more Trumpesque (the actual term is Trumpian, but as a gal that loves literature, this seems more fitting).
His second run was less about re-election than vindication—a grand return, not as a reformer, but as an avenger, determined to reshape the world order in his own image, even if it meant burning the old one down.
Trump’s America first: the sledgehammer to the old order
As a selfish lover, Trump never liked America’s international entanglements. Multilateralism? Too complicated. Global responsibility? Too expensive. His presidency saw a sharp departure from diplomacy as he withdrew from key international agreements—Paris Climate Accord, Iran Nuclear Deal, and even flirting with NATO abandonment. He rewrote the rules, and no one could stop him.
In his mind, America wasn’t just carrying the burden of global stability—it was Sisyphus, doomed to roll the wretched boulder of NATO and international alliances up the same godforsaken hill, again and again.
And to a certain extent, I’ll give him that. Fair.
If we strip away the theatrics, Trump’s grievances had some merit. NATO members had, for years, relied on U.S. military funding and protection while often failing to meet their own defense spending targets. But instead of negotiating, Trump went straight for the nuclear option: publicly berating allies, questioning NATO’s relevance, and making everyone wonder if America was about to walk away altogether.
The result? A geopolitical trust crisis. For the first time, NATO allies seriously considered a world without U.S. military backing—Germany ramped up defense talks, France pushed for "strategic autonomy," and countries that once depended on America started looking elsewhere. Western unity weakened, and as expected, Russia and China wasted no time filling the gaps.
There are a few things you can always count on Donald Trump to do:
Call someone a loser—especially on Twitter, usually at a time he has no business be up on.
Forget the names of half of his cabinet and confuse different African nations—yet he always seems to remember who betrayed him three decades ago.
Declare that something is either the best thing to ever happen, or the worst—no in-betweens with this man.
And last but certainly not least—trash China at any given opportunity.
His open disdain for China wasn’t just campaign talk—it launched a trade war meant to cripple Beijing but instead pushed China to expand its global influence. The tariffs and decoupling efforts forced China to strengthen ties with the Global South and accelerate its Belt and Road Initiative.
Which is ironic, considering his fondness for authoritarian leaders. Putin, Kim Jong-un, Bolsonaro—Trump didn’t just tolerate strongmen; he admired them. His erratic foreign policy—cozying up to North Korea before reversing course, pulling U.S. troops from Syria without warning, greenlighting Turkish incursions into Kurdish territories—made America look unreliable.
And all this strategic uncertainty? It shattered trust in America, who now has to watch as her casual flings look elsewhere for stability.
The new world order: a future without an anchor
And so, here we are—front-row seats to the slow, dramatic, and frankly chaotic unraveling of American hegemony. The once-indisputable hall monitor of the world is now struggling to get everyone to follow the rules she herself spent decades enforcing.
Now, let me be clear—for all the smarty-pants and more educated scholars that may be reading this—Trump didn’t singlehandedly create this shift toward a multipolar world. In the logic that world orders change, it was only a matter of time before the spotlight began fading from America. So no, Donny did not do this on his own—he did, however, speed things up. Stripping away alliances, undermining institutions, and treating global diplomacy like a zero-sum business deal, Trump took what was already a changing world order and threw it into overdrive—no seatbelts, no airbags, just pure chaos.
And so, America, once the self-proclaimed guardian of stability, now looks more like that ex who insists they’re over you but keeps watching your Instagram stories. Her old allies? Moving on, making new friends, hedging their bets. Her old enemies? Thriving, emboldened, filling the void she left behind.
The world order that once revolved around Washington’s every move is no more. What comes next? Well, that’s a work in progress—but one thing’s for sure: nobody’s waiting around for America to make up her mind.
