By January 2026, the first year of the second four-year—and constitutionally final—term of U.S. President Donald Trump was complete. This initial quarter of his tenure has jolted the world, unnerving the global community on economic, trade, and security matters while weakening the post-war international order. The resulting shocks reverberate across the international system, amplified by the scale of U.S. power and global entanglement. This disruption is unfolding in real time.

Donald Trump’s second-term foreign policy has accelerated the collapse of the postwar liberal international order by abandoning its institutions, norms, and sources of legitimacy. Economic integration is now widely used as a tool of coercion, placing middle powers in an unstable interregnum defined by great-power rivalry, forced alignment choices, and a widening contrast between U.S. unilateralism and China’s defense of globalization and multilateralism.

Today’s Venezuela will have a long and unpredictable road to travel before it can escape the shadow of the Noriega era. Operation Absolute Resolve will either bring the United States to the summit of hegemony or act as a fuse that ignites the collapse of the rules-based global order.

(Social media @realDonaldTrump)In May 2024, I penned an article that framed Europe’s existential dilemma starkly: either fade into obscurity as the "conti

Trump cannot easily replicate his muscular intervention in South America because conditions are far different. But the methods that appeared effective in Venezuela are ill-suited to a territory that is deeply embedded in alliance politics and the international legal order.

Many countries in the North appear to be justifying the action by the U.S., while most in the South are condemning it. It is especially important now that political leaders be aware of the true aspirations and hardships of their people and address them urgently before these can escalate into dissent.

Unable to maintain its position of leadership, the United States is severely hindering the progress of other nations. It’s a self-isolating form of hegemony that poses real geopolitical dangers. By openly acknowledging and pursuing exclusive spheres of influence, America is effectively signaling a return to the law of the jungle.

In 2025, Ukraine gradually changed from a battlefield confrontation to a complex contest centered on cease-fire terms, postwar arrangements and the responsibilities of the world’s major powers. The war in Ukraine did not end in 2025, but a new reality was clearly defined.

For a mathematician, 2025 might stand out for being a “perfect square”: 45 multiplied by 45, a rare symmetry. But its significance goes far beyond numerical elegance – it marks the year the postwar global order expired, and a new one was about to be born.

In November 2024, US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping made their first substantive joint statement about the national-security risks posed b