Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1532977
10 OPINION maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 5 MARCH 2025 THERE is general agreement that the US's geopolitical shock therapy is a sign of a new world order. While European powers nominally recognise this, their policies are not, in practice, tai- lored towards such a change. The EU and other European governments are, understand- ably, focused on very immedi- ate matters – talks on Ukraine, defence budgets, rebutting big US tech firms. But they also need to be guided by a clearer vision of the broader interna- tional order that flows from this inflection point. Even though the world has already changed profoundly over the last decade, most ob- servers judge the current junc- ture to be a decisive watershed. Yet the tumult unleashed in 2025 feels not so much like a well-defined new world or- der as the chaotic imprecision of "no world order". Nothing concrete has emerged as a re- placement for the long-crum- bling liberal order. Multi-polarity is not fully evident because there is little balance between powers. But the current influence of large powers rubs uneasily with the notion of a "G-zero world" in which no countries have any real control. The long-predicted pluri- lateralism, in which smaller groups of states reach political agreements, has not become reality. Yet neither is a well-or- dered concert of great powers especially evident. A concert-based order would hardly accord the primacy now reassigned to Russia, a country that enjoys only a few of the long-term structural attributes of great-power status. But it's also worth noting that "no world order" is not quite the same thing as "new world disorder". Although many lead- ers make a show of flouting in- ternational rules and norms on high-profile issues like interna- tional courts, the reality is that they still matter in condition- ing international behaviour. It can reasonably be suggested that the new order will be ec- lectic or composite – essential- ly, a combination of all of the above. Yet, the current jumble and clash of dynamics does not constitute a patterned "order". The relationships between the different forces at work are no- where near being worked out. What is European 'independ- ence'? In this void, European gov- ernments and the EU are lean- ing heavily on two long-famil- iar tenets, even as these raise operational question marks. One is the notion of autono- my. European leaders have now doubled down on their calls for more strategic autonomy and a narrative of Europe of being "independent" from the US and "writing its own history". But autonomy is a somewhat hazy geopolitical motif. Euro- pean powers of course need the autonomy to chart their own strategic priorities, but cur- rent crises palpably reinforce the need to manage complex interdependencies. Autono- my in the sense of deploying economic, political or military capabilities unconstrained by other powers is a diminished prospect. The other European reflex is to stress a determination to "reinforce multilateralism", something few other world powers are apparently willing to do now. But multilateralism in its cur- rent form is surely beyond re- suscitation. The imperative is rather to rethink multilateral norms and salvage the most essential core of liberal coop- eration amid today's lurch to- wards uncontrolled turbulence and power-expediency. I have previously proposed what I term "geoliberalism" as a path forward. This is a model that balances geopolitical real- ity alongside liberal and dem- ocratic values. In the second Trump era, the liberal elements of this concept are even more squeezed than they were before he was re-elected. Despite the multilateralism rhetoric, European powers ac- tually seem to be leaning to- wards a more absolute version of realpolitik, with diplomacy based on practical rather than moral considerations. The Eu- ropean Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, talks of "hyper-transactionalism", which is less a vision of order than its negation. European international lib- eralism needs to be reframed, not jettisoned. It will be more rearguard and selective, but needs also to be more concert- ed to hold at bay today's tur- bo-charged illiberal assault. It can lock onto powerful global societal trends to which realpolitik is dangerously and self-defeatingly blind. Europe- an Union powers need to be more measured but also more pointed in salvaging islands of liberal order – for example on climate change cooperation. There is little sign of such re- flection. Familiar cliches are dominating the European re- sponse to the US illiberal pivot. The strategic debate has nar- rowed, especially around the question of defence spending. No world order: Europe needs more radical thinking for the Trump era Richard Youngs is Professor of International and European Politics, University of Warwick Richard Youngs Volodymyr Zelensky and Ursula Von der Leyen meet in Kyiv on the third anniversary of the war. Alamy/Belga News Agency