Der Liberalismus hat die liberale internationale Ordnung zum Scheitern verurteilt: Ein weniger legalistisches System würde dazu beitragen, Demokratien zu schützen

[SS from essay by Stacie E. Goddard, Betty Freyhof Johnson ’44 Professor of Political Science and Associate Provost for Wellesley in the World at Wellesley College; Ronald R. Krebs, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota; Christian Kreuder-Sonnen, Junior Professor of Political Science and International Organizations at Friedrich Schiller University Jena; and Berthold Rittberger, Chair of International Relations at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute of Political Science at the University of Munich.]

The liberal international order is dying, and its transatlantic backers are grieving. During the first Trump administration, many were in denial, but few are now. Some are angry, denouncing a villain—usually U.S. President Donald Trump—for having unnecessarily destroyed what they hold dear and vowing to step forward to bolster global institutions: in March, for instance, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock declared that “a ruthless time has begun in which we must defend the rules-based international order and the strength of law more than ever against the power of the strongest.” Others, such as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, hope they can bargain—that by coming on bended knee to the White House and flattering Trump, they can persuade the United States to reinvest in its historic alliances and defend key principles such as territorial sovereignty. Still others are depressed, resigned to the order’s demise but unable to imagine an alternative future.

Few of these mourners seem truly ready to accept the order’s passing. But they should. Praying for its resurrection is not just naive; it is counterproductive. All these responses misdiagnose the order’s deepest illness and thus prescribe the wrong remedy. The liberal international order’s crisis cannot be blamed on Trump’s peculiar brand of nihilistic politics, nor on the hard neoliberal turn that the order took in the 1990s, nor on the rise of revisionist, illiberal powers such as China and Russia.