ASIA
15 February 2026
Bob Kagan on Trumpism
Trump wants to return to the 19th century’s world order, a very dangerous time, according to Robert Kagan.
Donald Trump’s administration is transforming the US into a dictatorship, and bringing to an end the US-led world order, of which the US has been the leading beneficiary, according to Robert Kagan.
In his recent essay for The Atlantic, “America vs. the World”, Kagan argues that Trump wants to return to the 19th century’s international order. He will leave America less prosperous—and the whole world less secure. Bob Kagan is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at the Brookings think tank.
Trump and his goons are openly celebrating the end of the US-led postwar grand bargain. They believe it was unfair to the US, wasting so much money, and resulting in the US being taken advantage of, according to Kagan. The national consensus got to the point where everybody thought we're doing too much on foreign policy. This had been building since the end of the Cold War.
This reflects a broader American ignorance about the unusual role the US has played in the world since the end of World War 2. Other countries were willing to let the US be the strongest power in the world, and to place their security in American hands. This is something unprecedented in history.
This made for a very special kind of international environment and one very beneficial to the United States. Trump is taking us back to a world like the one before World War 2 – a multipolar world where everybody's fending for himself. And that's a much more dangerous world for the US.
Some Trumpists think of the European “long piece” in the 19th century when they talk about a more multipolar world. But that period was not so peaceful. Practically every single decade of this “long peace” saw a major conflict involving two or more great powers – like the Crimean War and the Franco-Prussian War. If we were to replicate that kind of world today, we would be having major wars involving Russia, China, and maybe Japan, Germany, and the US pretty much once every decade.
Today, people are so used to the broad peace among great powers since the end of World War 2 that they don't realise that a normal world is one where great powers are frequently in conflict.
Trump’s 2025 US National Security Strategy curiously evokes the idea of “spheres of influence”. Yet the US’ sphere would be much less advanced than China’s or Russia’s – Latin America is less important than other regions. Russia’s sphere would mean depriving Poland, the Baltics and others of their independence and sovereignty. And China’s would mean the same for Southeast Asia, South Korea and possibly Japan. In sum, spheres of influence are untenable in today’s world of independent and nationalist nations.
Trump’s supporters imagine that the US’ natural allies – Western Europe, Canada, and Australia – will go along with Trump’s America as it extracts steep economic tribute from them. Some European countries are stuck in the first stage of grief – denial – regarding the end of the postwar order. They hope that after Trump, they can go back to the old order.
But the reality is that the old order is over, and the most astute understand this, and are adapting. They are building up their militaries and thinking of their own security without the US. This is a challenge because they have for so long depended on the US. It's going to require a significant transformation of these European economies and even their societies.
It really is America alone, and more importantly America against the world. China and Russia will not be buddies. They will continue their fundamentally hostile and aggressive view toward American leadership in the world. Moreover, many former allies could become adversaries as public opinion swings against the US.
Chinese strategic thinkers believe that the most important difference between the US and China is not the economy or the military because China can always catch up. The big difference is America’s 50 allies and strategic partners around the world. All China has is Pakistan and North Korea. But what Trump is doing is destroying America’s strategic advantage.
How is China viewing all this? They will want to benefit from all the countries that the US is alienating, like Canada, Europe and the UK. They may well believe that the US is not going to be like this forever, and that the US will eventually revert to its old self. This means that there is a brief window of opportunity to accomplish major Chinese objectives regarding Taiwan. Russia is surely thinking along these lines.
It may be hard to believe. But the US is actually slipping into dictatorship. The US will no longer have the respect from other democracies, based on shared values.
Kagan is pessimistic about the US mid-term elections in November 2026. Trump will do his utmost to stop the Democrats achieving a majority in Congress, such as by provoking civil unrest as ICE has been doing. We should not underestimate him. His team has basically dismantled a democracy in the space of one year. The Justice Department is now a legal service for going after Trump's enemies.
Who could stop Trump and his team? The Republican Party is the party of dictatorship today, and is not going to stop them, if it costs their jobs. And the Supreme Court is compliant.
Kagan sees the US intervention in Venezuela as being essentially about domestic US politics. The more that you can say we are at war, the more power the president has domestically. Trump is also trying to militarise American society by using the military at home. The military is now a potential weapon against democracy and Trump wants to use it that way.
How can we understand Donald Trump? His only doctrine is power, he wants to dominate, according to Kagan. He's not transactional. He wants every transaction to end with you admitting that he is more powerful than you and can do what he wants.
He wanted to commit an act of territorial aggression against Greenland. He wants to be world emperor and boss around every country. But he's not in the business of bossing around tough countries like Vladimir Putin's Russia or Xi Jinping's China.
We have had a real break and a real discontinuity and the beginning of a return to normal international relations, meaning a very dangerous situation. We take for granted the degree of peace that we've enjoyed over the last eight plus decades, the degree of prosperity. We think that's the norm. The norm is actually a lot more like what the world looked like before 1945.
In his recent essay for The Atlantic, “America vs. the World”, Kagan argues that Trump wants to return to the 19th century’s international order. He will leave America less prosperous—and the whole world less secure. Bob Kagan is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at the Brookings think tank.
Trump and his goons are openly celebrating the end of the US-led postwar grand bargain. They believe it was unfair to the US, wasting so much money, and resulting in the US being taken advantage of, according to Kagan. The national consensus got to the point where everybody thought we're doing too much on foreign policy. This had been building since the end of the Cold War.
This reflects a broader American ignorance about the unusual role the US has played in the world since the end of World War 2. Other countries were willing to let the US be the strongest power in the world, and to place their security in American hands. This is something unprecedented in history.
This made for a very special kind of international environment and one very beneficial to the United States. Trump is taking us back to a world like the one before World War 2 – a multipolar world where everybody's fending for himself. And that's a much more dangerous world for the US.
Some Trumpists think of the European “long piece” in the 19th century when they talk about a more multipolar world. But that period was not so peaceful. Practically every single decade of this “long peace” saw a major conflict involving two or more great powers – like the Crimean War and the Franco-Prussian War. If we were to replicate that kind of world today, we would be having major wars involving Russia, China, and maybe Japan, Germany, and the US pretty much once every decade.
Today, people are so used to the broad peace among great powers since the end of World War 2 that they don't realise that a normal world is one where great powers are frequently in conflict.
Trump’s 2025 US National Security Strategy curiously evokes the idea of “spheres of influence”. Yet the US’ sphere would be much less advanced than China’s or Russia’s – Latin America is less important than other regions. Russia’s sphere would mean depriving Poland, the Baltics and others of their independence and sovereignty. And China’s would mean the same for Southeast Asia, South Korea and possibly Japan. In sum, spheres of influence are untenable in today’s world of independent and nationalist nations.
Trump’s supporters imagine that the US’ natural allies – Western Europe, Canada, and Australia – will go along with Trump’s America as it extracts steep economic tribute from them. Some European countries are stuck in the first stage of grief – denial – regarding the end of the postwar order. They hope that after Trump, they can go back to the old order.
But the reality is that the old order is over, and the most astute understand this, and are adapting. They are building up their militaries and thinking of their own security without the US. This is a challenge because they have for so long depended on the US. It's going to require a significant transformation of these European economies and even their societies.
It really is America alone, and more importantly America against the world. China and Russia will not be buddies. They will continue their fundamentally hostile and aggressive view toward American leadership in the world. Moreover, many former allies could become adversaries as public opinion swings against the US.
Chinese strategic thinkers believe that the most important difference between the US and China is not the economy or the military because China can always catch up. The big difference is America’s 50 allies and strategic partners around the world. All China has is Pakistan and North Korea. But what Trump is doing is destroying America’s strategic advantage.
How is China viewing all this? They will want to benefit from all the countries that the US is alienating, like Canada, Europe and the UK. They may well believe that the US is not going to be like this forever, and that the US will eventually revert to its old self. This means that there is a brief window of opportunity to accomplish major Chinese objectives regarding Taiwan. Russia is surely thinking along these lines.
It may be hard to believe. But the US is actually slipping into dictatorship. The US will no longer have the respect from other democracies, based on shared values.
Kagan is pessimistic about the US mid-term elections in November 2026. Trump will do his utmost to stop the Democrats achieving a majority in Congress, such as by provoking civil unrest as ICE has been doing. We should not underestimate him. His team has basically dismantled a democracy in the space of one year. The Justice Department is now a legal service for going after Trump's enemies.
Who could stop Trump and his team? The Republican Party is the party of dictatorship today, and is not going to stop them, if it costs their jobs. And the Supreme Court is compliant.
Kagan sees the US intervention in Venezuela as being essentially about domestic US politics. The more that you can say we are at war, the more power the president has domestically. Trump is also trying to militarise American society by using the military at home. The military is now a potential weapon against democracy and Trump wants to use it that way.
How can we understand Donald Trump? His only doctrine is power, he wants to dominate, according to Kagan. He's not transactional. He wants every transaction to end with you admitting that he is more powerful than you and can do what he wants.
He wanted to commit an act of territorial aggression against Greenland. He wants to be world emperor and boss around every country. But he's not in the business of bossing around tough countries like Vladimir Putin's Russia or Xi Jinping's China.
We have had a real break and a real discontinuity and the beginning of a return to normal international relations, meaning a very dangerous situation. We take for granted the degree of peace that we've enjoyed over the last eight plus decades, the degree of prosperity. We think that's the norm. The norm is actually a lot more like what the world looked like before 1945.