Welcome Back To The Multipolar World (Iran and Korea in Perspective)

As I have written before, the Cold War is now finally over. After the fall of the Soviet Union it looked like America was the clear victor, and the USA maintained Cold War institutions to create a new global order. Now it is apparent that the United States also lost the Cold War, just 25 years later. Trump tearing up the Iran nuclear deal today is yet another sign that the Pax Americana is over.

After leaving the Paris Accords and now this, how will any country think the USA is bargaining in good faith with them? This might seem like an odd move, considering the upcoming summit with North Korea, but I think Trump has a bigger goal. Recent news indicates a desire to withdraw troops from Korea. And remember, during the campaign Trump basically called on Japan to nuclearize in order to counteract North Korea. He has shown contradictory desires to use military force and to reduce deployments. As far as I can tell he is against outlays of the military to preserve peace, and in favor of them to commit war.

Most importantly, he simply ignores the wishes of our allies. To Trump, these relationships mean nothing. He is a gangster who thinks that brute force and brute force only in the sole acceptable tool in international politics. This is why he has often praised dictators who wield the kind of absolute power that he wishes he had.

This means that as Pax Americana ends we will back to the multipolar world order from before World War II. That is something no one should be happy about. Even worse, the three poles appear to be the United States, Russia, and China. A tripolar world ends in conflict, because two of the powers will always join to together to beat up on the third one. The EU may emerge as another pole, but its relationship to the US has been irreparably harmed.

Barack Obama spent eight years repairing the damage to Pax Americana done by Dubya and his band of neocons. Trump has already destroyed the hallmarks of that repair, from shredding the Iran deal to poisoning the nascent relationship with Cuba. At this point I don't think we will get another chance. The landscape has been permanently altered.