That’s not to say the so-called Pax Americana was always good – just ask the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam.
However, it gave a measure of stability to the world, leading to less war and countries spending less on defence than in the past and helped to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Now we have a US President openly setting his sights on taking control of neighbouring countries, contemplating the use of force, putting trade barriers up with America’s closest allies – and giving tacit endorsement to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Over the centuries, great world powers have come and go, but who would have ever thought America’s time in the sun would end on live TV as Trump’s treatment of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told everyone that the US could no longer be relied upon?
Its friends are fast realising they can no longer trust the US to stand beside them.
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark has suggested we have to question our Five Eyes relationship, given we can’t know if the information shared will end up on the wrong desk.
Democracies will have to create new alliances and trade relationships without the US and invest in their own defence industries – and there’s a good chance that some will decide they need to develop their own nuclear weapons as a deterrent against aggressive neighbours.
The world will be less safe and poorer as a result, including the US, which will see its influence shrink.
The sense of crisis is very real as a European country is currently under invasion and others worry they will be next.
With the US out of the picture, it now falls to European leaders to fill the gap.
My impression is that Europe’s leaders are very serious about facing down Vladimir Putin’s Russia and ensuring he does not threaten his neighbours again. There’s a real risk this may lead to a more direct confrontation than we’ve seen so far.
The US’ heel-turn on the world stage comes at an unwelcome time, too. The Chinese flotilla in the Tasman Sea has sparked fantastical suggestions that independence is under threat and calls for more defence spending (although spending on what no one seems to know).
We need to take a breath, I think.
Firstly, the Chinese “freedom of navigation” exercise (where war ships sail in international waters to assert their right to do so) comes a few months after naval vessels from other countries sent their own vessels on a similar journey through the Taiwan Strait last year. It was a tit-for-tat response, not out-of-the-blue aggression.
Secondly, China doesn’t have the capacity or the inclination to launch a military adventure in the South Pacific, 10,000km from its borders.
Its concerns are about its immediate neighbours. Our efforts will be better spent on facilitating peaceful dialogue in Asia. That’s more likely to serve us well than pouring taxpayer dollars into weaponry that we won’t need.
Thanks to the US’ decision to abdicate its global hegemony, we no longer live in the benign strategic environment we enjoyed in previous decades. But that doesn’t mean we need to bankrupt ourselves buying second-rate fighter planes or warships.
Small countries are always best served by an international environment in which the big powers work through peaceful means and don’t see war as just another tool in the diplomatic toolkit.
With the US retreating from the role it has held since the end of World War II, others are going to have to be the champions for the rules-based order.
Europe is already taking on a leadership role, and we would do well to stand beside them.
A crazy week - who would’ve thought the first casualty of this war would be our ambassador to the UK?
