The liberal international order we were accustomed to has changed. It is an assertion that analysts and political scientists have been making for some years now, but when did that transformation begin? What characterizes it and where does it lead us? We review the main keys that help us understand these turbulent times.
June 1944. Allied troops landed in Normandy to begin the liberation of Europe from the Nazis. Operation Overlord, an unprecedented military offensive, paved the way to Victory Day, in May 1945, when Hitler’s Germany fell. Rarely has the world been so close to being so different.
With the aim of preventing wars of such magnitude, as well as promoting political cooperation and guaranteeing economic stability, the victorious powers designed an international order based on two fundamental pillars: one financial—with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization—and another political—with the United Nations.
Thus a new architecture was born that has functioned for 70 years. Or rather: the West believed it worked. Because there is another part of the world that does not fit into a system of rules that does not adjust to its reality. “In that 1945 order, emerging countries have appeared that have not found accommodation, because it seemed to them an unjust order that did not represent them,” explains José Ignacio Torreblanca, director of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. India, China, Russia emerged thus; powers that began to participate economically thanks to globalization, which now claim their place and which, little by little, “begin to erode the legitimacy of a system and multilateral institutions that do not reform and do not give them access.”
Within that gradual displacement of traditional pieces on the international board, three facts have reinforced the perception that the order we are accustomed to is changing: Xi Jinping’s China, Vladímir Putin’s Russia, and Donald Trump’s United States.
JOSÉ MARÍA BENEYTO: “THE THEME OF OUR TIME IS THE EMERGENCE OF CHINA IN WORLD POWER”
The awakening of the dragon
“The theme of our time is the emergence of China, which exercises a transformative power and influence in the international order,” states José María Beneyto, a lawyer and expert in international relations who has long been closely observing the growth of the Asian country. During Xi Jinping’s early years, China did not explicitly show its will to influence, “partly because they were sheltered under being a developing country that needed others,” Beneyto adds. Furthermore, “they believed in the principles of international cooperation, in free trade, they attracted investment, they acquired Western know-how.” But there came a time when the United States realized that this ascendancy brings with it “a threat to security, not only economic, but also to dominance of the seas.” Thus, in an apparently subtle way, Xi Jinping has made an important change: transferring that economic power to political power.
An example of China’s political influence on the board is its growing presence in other parts of the world, such as Africa or Latin America. “Latin America is a crucial point, because it is the West and has very particular connections with Europe,” Beneyto notes. In recent decades, the region “has gone from being the backyard of the United States to being the great investment resource and extraction of raw materials for China,” something that concerns Westerners.
“Since the beginning of this century, China’s presence in Latin America has been exponential,” points out Pamela Aróstica, director of the China and Latin America Network: Multidisciplinary Approaches (REDCAEM). A presence that “has generated opportunities for development and diversification of partners,” but has also established asymmetric relationships “that pose risks such as economic and political dependence, impacts on local industries and environmental and social effects, as well as vulnerability linked to data control and critical infrastructure.”
Despite this, China’s presence in the region shows that “Latin America occupies a key position in the struggle between the United States, as a superpower, and China, which aspires to consolidate itself as such,” in Aróstica’s view. Thus, the action of the United States in Venezuela at the beginning of this year marked a turning point at the regional level: “China has, on the one hand, a foreign policy of non-intervention and, on the other, prioritizes the protection of its economic interests.” Precisely, “this pragmatic approach allows it to maintain its regional presence and its role as an alternative partner.”
JOSÉ IGNACIO TORREBLANCA: “EMERGING COUNTRIES BEGIN TO ERODE THE LEGITIMACY OF A SYSTEM AND MULTILATERAL INSTITUTIONS THAT DO NOT GIVE THEM ACCESS”
Imperial longings
China applies the role of alternative partner to different actors around the globe, depending on its interests in the area. With Russia, it has also strengthened ties. “The Sino-Russian alliance exists,” affirms Beneyto, who adds that “we must not forget that, a week before the launch of the ‘special military operation in Ukraine’—using Putin’s terminology—he and Xi Jinping met in Sochi and made the joint declaration of a friendship without limits and of a new international order.” The meeting sealed a relationship that includes “cooperation in economic, energy, and military matters and, above all, opposition to the great enemy: the United States.”
The invasion of Ukraine is the other major element that has struck a blow on the international board. This is because Russia is a permanent member with veto power in the United Nations Security Council. The issue began in 2004, with the annexation of Crimea, and acquired global dimensions in 2022, when the war began and Putin managed to get China—another permanent member of the Council—to support him. Europe’s security was then seriously compromised.
Securing European borders is one of the reasons why the European Union still needs the shelter of American defense. Under the Biden Administration, this aid was guaranteed; now, with Trump in the White House, it is at risk. “Europe has still not managed to provide Ukraine with the capacity to defend itself alone,” Torreblanca acknowledges. Hence the need to “promote a European industry, as the Draghi Report points out,” with which to develop “economic security and military defense” that allows a certain independence from the United States. The key, according to this expert, is “strategic interdependence: diversify and do it with solid and reliable allies.”
CARLOTA GARCÍA ENCINA: “BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE THERE IS INTERDEPENDENCE AT THE ECONOMIC, INDUSTRIAL, AND DEFENSE LEVELS”
The MAGA whirlwind
But above all, it must be done quickly. “We are a declining power and, compared to China and the United States, we are falling behind on GDP, population, defense spending,” emphasizes Carlota García Encina, researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute specializing in the United States and transatlantic relations. To do this, there is no need to renounce European essence, as Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, hinted when urging partners to increase military spending. “Europe can no longer be the guardian of the old world order,” she said, only to later retract. According to García Encina, “Europe has to find a balance between values and pragmatism,” defining a “space to maintain a series of principles and, at the same time, adapt to an order that is different.”
And play its cards well. Because the United States also depends on the European Union. Take as an example, in García Encina’s words, “the Iran war: the United States cannot project its forces without European bases. That has always been the case; without them, it has no global projection.” Therefore, “in the medium-long term, there is a withdrawal by the United States.” Trump “is aware that he cannot be everywhere, that there are limits and that is why each one has to take care of their own defense,” something that Barack Obama had already said in his last term. But, “at the same time, he needs allies for the defense industry—which is at its limit—and to bring stability to certain spaces.”
PAMELA ARÓSTICA: “LATIN AMERICA OCCUPIES A KEY POSITION IN THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA”
No matter how much the Trump Administration tries, between the United States and Europe “there is interdependence at the economic or industrial level,” according to the Elcano analyst. Something that, in the end, Trump himself knows, because, despite his threats and “wanting to always relate to each of the European countries and not with the European institution, in summer he had to negotiate with the Commission to close the tariffs.”
Isolationism in foreign policy, economic nationalism, and deregulation, under an aggressive veneer, are the main characteristics of the MAGA [Make America Great Again] movement, which have become the third major destabilizing element of the international board. No one expected that the power that built and defended that global order in 1945 would suddenly be the same one that is now challenging it. Thus, “the characteristic of the current international order is uncertainty,” García Encina concludes. Anything can happen.
Carmen Gómez-Cotta