2025: Donald Trump, Realism and the Return of Geopolitics at the International Roundtable (I)

The international chessboard is definitively changing. The international theory of realism is being reborn within the American political arena, where the national interest is paramount. It is not hard for anyone to realize that the talking, the discussions, the conferences, and the dialogues will be replaced by concrete economic, (geo)political, and (geo)strategic action. The key question is: will Europe be ready for the international changes that will occur at a speed no one predicted? Will Europe and the European Union be willing to take the necessary steps in order not only to crush the political and cultural neo-marxism which penetrates the European society and mindset like rust but also to clear its name and to strengthen its alliance with the United States in order to resist the economic, political, military and ideological offensive coming from the new Axis of Evil (the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, Iran, and North Korea)?

Within this article, I would like to define the theory of realism as one of the most important international relations theories, to understand how the world got to this point starting with the Second World War in terms of political philosophy and concrete geopolitical actions and underline the most significant changes and shifts that the new President of the United States, Donald Trump, is about to make within the international landscape and to highlight the brilliant role that the European Union could play within this international architecture with the United States not only politically, but also culturally and economically.

Realism and the Elements of National Power

First of all, when it comes to the grand approach that the Trump administration will have on the international arena, (neo)realism will be on the geopolitical roundtable. The (neo)realist theory sees the state as the most important actor, an actor that is also a rational one. Another important characteristic of realism, when it comes to the international landscape, is that the national interest is much more important than the international organizations of which that respective state is part. As an example, I will briefly quote and analyze the most important work of the pioneer of the international theory of realism in the 20^th century, Hans J. Morgenthau, which is called: “Politics among Nations. The Struggle for Power and Peace”. He views the international political landscape as a “struggle for power”[1], but power not in the sense of brutal force. He sees power as “man’s control over the minds and actions of other men”[2]. More concretely, “political power is a psychological relation between those who exercise it and those over whom it is exercised”[3]. Because everything in the realm of politics is based on the concept of “power” (according to Morgenthau), the author established 8 elements of national power: geography, natural resources, industrial capacity, military preparedness, population, national character, national morale, and the quality of diplomacy.

When it comes to the geographical factor, Morgenthau makes a brilliant analysis of the United States: “the fact that the continental territory of the United States is separated from other continents by bodies of water, three thousand miles wide in the east, and more than six thousand miles wide in the west is a permanent factor which determines the position of the United States in the world”[4]. Related to natural resources, food represents the elemental resource, and, therefore, a nation that has enough food for its population through self-sufficient means will have a bigger advantage over a nation that is dependent on the delivery of food from other countries. Alongside food, there are also natural resources related to “industrial production” and the “waging of war”[5] (for example, raw materials that are mainly used at a certain time for the dominant technological capacity and the creation of weaponry). This is directly linked to industrial capacity because raw materials determine the potential industrial power of a country. When this book was written (in the 1950s), uranium, coal, oil, and iron determined the national strength of a country: “The United States and the Soviet Union have drawn a good deal of their national strength from the possession of vast amounts of these two raw materials [iron and coal] because they possess also an industrial plant which can transform them into industrial products”[6].

Military preparedness is the fourth dimension of national power because the projection of power is also dependent on the state of weaponry and the military technology that a state has to pursue its national interest: “Military preparedness requires a military establishment capable of supporting the foreign policies pursued […] The fate of nations and of civilizations has often been determined by a differential in the technology of warfare for which the inferior side was unable to compensate in other ways”[7]. Moreover, Morgenthau describes the four military innovations of the 20^th century in terms of the military projection of power: the submarine; the tank; the strategical coordination of the air, naval, and land forces; and the monopoly of the atomic bomb, a role played by the United States until the Soviet Union acquired also its atomic bomb in 1949. When it comes to the fifth element of national power, namely the population, the number of inhabitants within a country does not represent, necessarily, that that particular country is the most powerful nation. However, a powerful state needs to be among the states that have the most inhabitants on the planet[8].

 Now turning to the moral side of the elements of national power, the national character has great importance, but it is not decisive. At the same time, the moral qualities upon which a state is built can influence the power of the state because a great part of the society will build its political behavior based on its understanding of international politics and based on the promises of different political actors: “those who act for the nation in peace and war, formulate, execute, and support its policies, elect and are elected, mold public opinion, produce and consume – they all bear to a greater or lesser degree the imprint of those intellectual and moral qualities which make up the national character”[9]. Even though it is “less stable”[10], national morale is directly linked to the national character of a country, representing the degree of national willingness to support the policies of peace and war of a country: “National morale is the degree of determination with which a nation supports the foreign policies of its government in peace or war […] In the form of public opinion it provides an intangible factor without whose support no government, democratic or autocratic, is able to pursue its policies with full effectiveness, if it is able to pursue them at all”[11]. The national morale can be perfectly measured during a national crisis when the state may or may not mobilize the nation toward a possible military conflict with another state, which is also able or not to mobilize its forces in order to defend its territory from the potential aggressor. This state of affairs is perfectly present, unfortunately, also in the 21^st century, when a country with superior military personnel and weaponry (the Russian Federation) attacked an inferior nation in terms of population and weaponry (Ukraine), but with a very strong national morale which compensated the inferiority in numbers. Without the presence of strong national morale, the weaponry and the other elements of national power are transforming into pure dust, leaving only some instruments in no one’s hands.

Last but not least, the quality of diplomacy represents, in the eyes of the author, the most important element of national power. The quality of diplomacy determines not only the process of peace and war, but also constructs or destroys the reputation of a country in the eyes of its international partners, friends, and foes: “The conduct of nation’s foreign affairs by its diplomats is for national power in peace what military strategy and tactics by its military leaders are for national power in war […] Diplomacy […] is the brains of national power, as national morale is its soul”[12]. In his book, Morgenthau appreciates the quality of the diplomacy during the interwar period in Romania: “In the period between the two world wars, Rumania owed its ability to play a role in international affairs much superior to its actual resources chiefly to the personality of one man, its Foreign Minister Titulescu”. Nicolae Titulescu represents one of the most powerful and most respected Romanian diplomats on the international arena serving twice as the President of the League of Nations (between 1930 and 1932), the precursor of the United Nations. 

The Free World after 1945, the openness of the United States to the People’s Republic of China, and the shift towards the year 2000

Based on the realist theory and the elements of national power, what is the situation of the United States as we speak? What are its most important assets and in which respect does the United States need to improve? What will be the grand strategy of the United States during the current Trump administration and what are its chances to project power on the international arena? Are we returning to an era of geopolitics and realism or are we speaking only about a man’s personality, namely Donald Trump? But, most importantly, will we still be living in the geopolitical landscape built after the Second World War or the 20^th of January will be the day that will change the course of history dramatically (positive or negative)?

After 1945, the free world was based on 4 bedrocks:

1. The re-establishment of Christian values, which represented the legacy of Europe for more than 1900 years. These values were more or less translated into human rights;
2. The establishment of powerful international organizations, which had the purpose to encourage and ensure a continuous process of peace, trade, and democracy (the United Nations, the European Coal and Steel Community, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund), but also to protect the free world from the continuous danger of totalitarian communist forces, represented by the Soviet Union (NATO);
3. A continuous process of liberalization of international trade, based on the (neo)liberal international theory, which states the fact that, even if the state remains the most important actor on the international arena, one has to encourage trade between former enemies. If one encourages that, the prospects of war disappear. Therefore, cooperation among states is of paramount importance;
4. A continuous process of democratization, which led to the process of decolonization and the disappearance of the traditional empires (British, French and Spanish empires);

After the year 1960, there is a shift within public opinion toward a more liberal organization of the state, with the authority of the state within the personal and public spheres of the individual being put into question. On this background, the 1968 movement took place and completely revolutionized the public opinion towards a more radical liberal society. The conservative Christian values that maintained the balance within the collective mindset were not only contested but most of them were institutionalized within the mentality of the crowds. From this movement, backed by the philosophers of the School of Frankfurt, neo-Marxist thought was born, which changed the societal order until that time. The grand theory that will describe, from now on, the worldview of many Westerners will be the Critical Theory, which will revolutionize all of the aspects of society. The critical theory shifted the policies of nation-states, international organizations, and public opinion toward the left-socialist, neo-Marxist agenda. The critical theory represents a reflectivist theory, in which both history and empirical data have a role to play. Reality does not exist outside theory because theory contributes to a permanent construction and reconstruction of reality. Because we do not have direct access to reality, but a mediated access, this mediation takes the form of theories about things. We understand the world through the language that we are using to describe it. The language used to designate objects constitutes an ideological option. In the case of the critical theory, the issues of humanity and truth are of internal matter. You are inside the reality, you, as an individual are born inside a state, and educated in schools that promote a certain type of ideology, therefore you are not separated from your object of reality. Those who are researching are inside the world, and cannot separate our perspective from our background, our profession, our gender, and religion, all influencing the way in which we see the world and interpret the world as it is filtered by those lances. This movement of critical theory will not only turn the world into philosophical chaos and psychosis, but will also question the very foundations of human nature, Christianity, capitalism, freedom, and democracy.

Georg Lukacs was the architect of the critical theory, which challenged the objective values that governed Europe for more than 1900 years. In 1923, in a work called “History and Class Consciousness”, he defined the “new objectivity” on which the world will be based, according to his views: “to eliminate the objectivity attributed both to social institutions inimical to man and their historical evolution means the restoration of this objectivity to their underlying basis, to the relations between men; it does not involve the elimination of laws and objectivity independent of the will of man and in particular the wills and thoughts of individual men. It simply means that this objectivity is the self-objectification of human society at a particular stage in its development; its laws hold good only within the framework of the historical context which produced them and which is in turn determined by them”[13]. In other words, if the historical context changes in a favorable direction for this movement, the truth of Good and Evil will change accordingly. The principle of laws within a state will be the same, but the objective truths will become subjective. In other words, the truth will become fluid in the change of time and it will become relative to every historical context and, in this regard, to every man. The Only Truth will evolve into Many Truths, a Multitude of Truths.

Beyond the ideological shift, there was also a geopolitical one. Within the Security Council of the United Nations, besides the non-permanent members, there were present the 5 permanent members: the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, and the Republic of China (Taiwan). After the year 1969, when the United States wanted to isolate the Soviet Union through the doctrine of containment, established by former US President, Harry Truman, Henry Kissinger started to have closer and closer relationship with the People’s Republic of China. A document from the 1^st of February 1969 attested the fact that former US President, Richard Nixon, had an interest in establishing closer ties with the authorities in Beijing: “I think we should give every encouragement to the attitude that this Administration is <<exploring the possibilities of rapprochement with the Chinese>>”[14]. At the same time, the “First Annual Report to the Congress on United States Foreign Policy for the 1970’s” wrote: “We took specific steps toward easing economic relations between the United States and Communist China”[15]. As the document from the 1^st of July 1971 suggests, President Nixon instructed his Secretary of State, Dr. Kissinger, to carefully handle the future conversation between him and the Chinese Prime Minister, Chou En-Lai: “The President […] emphasized that the discussions with the Chinese cannot look like a sellout of Taiwan. He instructed Dr. Kissinger not to open up with a discussion on what we’ve done and the fact that we will not need troops there forever, but rather to restructure that point by emphasizing that the Nixon Doctrine provides for help to those nations who help themselves and thus it will not be essential for our military presence to remain in some areas forever”[16]. Moreover, within the Memorandum regarding the secret visit Henry Kissinger took between 9^th July 1971 and 11^th July 1971, there are a few points that I want to highlight based on declassified documentation:

1. The Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China, Chou En-Lai, told Dr. Kissinger that President Nixon is welcomed in China for further discussions: “As Chairman Mao has already said, we welcome President Nixon to our country for a visit, no matter whether he comes as President or as a private person”[17];
2. Dr. Kissinger told the Chinese counterpart that the US recognizes that China was a victim of “foreign oppression”[18] for the “past century”[19]; the conversation at the table should remain secret and that “each country recognizes each other as equals”[20]. This is a perfect ingredient of what will come in terms of bilateral relations in the future. He also emphasized that the United States will never make a “collusion”[21] against China and that “It is in the conviction of President Nixon that a strong and developing People’s Republic of China poses no threat to any U.S. interest”[22].
3. The response of Chou En-Lai is paramount for the mistake that the United States has made regarding its trust in its Chinese counterpart. Even though Henry Kissinger used once the word “friendship” in the context of resetting the relationship between the United States and China, the Chinese Prime Minister highlighted this word many times as if China is currently viewing the United States already as a friend: “I agree with what you just said – the Chinese and American peoples are friendly toward each other. This was true in the past and will be true in the future”[23].
4. Chou En-Lai has a very strong stance regarding the issue of Taiwan. He began by highlighting elements from Chinese history regarding the island and, after that, he underlined how the United States must behave to completely reset the relations between the 2 countries, an action that the United States took starting with the 1^st of January 1979: “the U.S. […] must recognize the PRC as the sole legitimate of China and not make any exceptions”[24]. Regarding Taiwan, he says: “Taiwan is a Chinese province, is already restored to China, and is an inalienable part of Chinese territory”[25]. As a consequence and conclusion of his requests, he says: “The U.S must withdraw all its armed forces and dismantle all its military installations on Taiwan and in the Taiwan Straits within a limited period”[26], emphasizing also that the issue of Taiwan is “a question of China’s internal affairs”[27]. Henry Kissinger answered this issue in 2 parts: the first part was about the military presents, Kissinger, saying that the military presence in Taiwan is already decreasing and that 2/3 of the US military forces within the Asian continent is concentrated on other parts of Asia and only 1/3 is concentrated on Taiwan. He is emphasizing that the US is ready to “remove that part related to the activities other than to the defense of Taiwan […] within a specified brief period after the ending of the war in Indochina”[28]. When it comes to the 1/3 forces around Taiwan, “We are prepared to begin reducing our other forces on Taiwan as our relations improve, so that the military questions need not be a principal obstacle between us”[29]. Regarding the second part (the political area), Kissinger highlights that the US is not prepared to make an official statement yet, but he is also saying that “we are not advocating a <<two Chinas >> solution or a <<one China, one Taiwan >> solution”. At the same time, Kissinger points up that the US does not support the Taiwanese Independent Movement, which is a political movement in Taiwan advocating for its independence from mainland China[30].
5. The status of Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China in the Security Council within the United Nations. Kissinger points out that the US is ready to accept the People’s Republic of China within the Security Council “and, as soon as you can get the two-thirds vote for expulsion, you would be the only representative of China in the U.N.”[31], agreeing thus to withdraw the opposition of the US. The response of Chou En-Lai is at least strange when he declares that the acceptance of the People’s Republic of China within the Security Council is not “an urgent matter”[32], hiding therefore his true views and intentions.

From these discussions, there came two main consequences:

1. According to U.N. Resolution 2758 from 25 October 1971, the People’s Republic of China’s government is officially recognized by the UN, and the PRC is replacing the Republic of China (Taiwan) from the Security Council. I will put the resolution’s text in a footnote[33].
2. On January 1, 1979, under the Jimmy Carter administration, the United States formally recognized the legitimate rule of the Chinese Communist Party in China, reestablishing diplomatic relations.

However, also under the Jimmy Carter administration, on 20^th April 1979, there was issued another important document called “Taiwanese Relations Act”, which within the 2^nd section, 2^th article, number 4, stipulates that the policy of the United States is to “consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts and embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States”. Moreover, number 5 says that it is in the interest of the United States “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character”, number 6 saying also that it is in the interest of the US “to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other force of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system of the people of Taiwan”[34]. At the same time, Ronald Reagan administration, which represents one of the best Republican administrations in all of the US history, retook into consideration the issue of Taiwan and established “The Six Assurances of 1982”, 3 main points being: the United States would not put pressure on Taiwan to negotiate with China, the US would not set a date for the end sale of arms to Taiwan, and the US would not consult the PRC “before selling arms to Taiwan”[35].

The disappearance of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the democratic revolutions of 1989 did not necessarily change fundamentally the 4 bedrocks of international relations after the Second World War and neither the philosophical and societal aspects of the neo-Marxist Critical Theory nor the bilateral US-China relations. Instead, it added to these 4 more bedrocks that challenged public opinion in such a way that it began to radicalize and polarize society towards the left-right cleavage.:

1. The constructivist international theory and the process of globalization, which is the radical evolution of the principle of international trade. One has to go beyond international trade, one has to go beyond the realist and liberal international theories, which maintain the powerful necessity of the state as the most important actor on the international arena. Until now one had to think in terms of power politics because of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, it is time for a change. The change is represented by the unipolarity of the United States after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the shift towards constructivist international thinking. Constructivism is one of the most newly developed theories of international relations, that does not take into account only states as the most important actors on the international arena, but it takes into consideration interests and identities which are formed and can be changed throughout history. Sovereignty, independence, and rationality are not natural processes, they are the products of human beings’ mentalities at a certain period and history. Constructivism discusses not only processes but also actions and interactions that can be shaped and reinvented depending on the current state of affairs of the international actors, and their current norms, values, and principles which can be changed over some time. Alexander Wendt is the architect of the constructivist theory, criticizing both neorealism and neoliberalism for their assumptions regarding the exogenous characteristic of the anarchic system. States do not all operate under the principle of self-help, they take into account the relation that they have at a certain place in time with that state, being a friend or a foe. At the same time, according to Wendt, the relation between 2 or more states can change in time, depending on the current leadership and decision-makers, but also according to states’ actions which can have a good or bad effect on other participants within the international order: “Identities are the basis of interests. Actors do not have a <<portfolio>> of interests that they carry around independent of social context; instead, they define their interests in the process of defining situations”[36];
2. The growing importance of collective identity to the detriment of individual and national identity, a process that derives from the constructivist line of thinking. States do not have to pursue their national interest because this could affect the collective international interest. Constructivism suggests, argues, and invokes a deconstruction of the materialist and individualist international theories (realism and liberalism) and a reconstruction that takes into account the collective will. According to Alexander Wendt, for example, sovereignty and independence are socially constructed practices that states have agreed upon which determine how states recognize other states, transforming into conditionalities of a state’s existence. Culture, identity, history, and belief systems are not something exogenous to individual and state actors, but they contribute to our actions and perceptions: “Even if not intended as such, in other words, the process by which egoists learn to cooperate is at the same time a process of reconstructing their interests in terms of shared commitments to social norms. Over time, this will tend to transform a positive interdependence of outcomes into a positive interdependence of utilities or collective interest organized around the norms in question”[37];
3. The shift from national power to eco-Marxism. Eco-Marxism means a more practical application of Critical Theory in the field of ecology and environment, in which there is a contradictory relationship between capitalist production and capitalism itself and the environment which can increase the crisis tendencies of capitalism. Thus, the destruction of the environment can lead to the destruction of natural resources and a total collapse of the capitalist system. Marxist theories postulate that capitalist production is a major danger to the environment. Capitalism considers nature as a raw material, as a means of reducing costs. It focuses only on the natural resources, without being concerned with ecology but only with profit maximization. Focused on human exploitation and nature, it is not concerned with pollution, waste, recycling, etc. Critical theory reflects upon the structure of this system presented by the Marxist theory, on the fact that the problem of domination seems to be a perennial problem within human societies, deconstructing the relation to power in order to make human beings escape domination. This can translate to human domination of nature, which has to be limited by an international agreement in order for the capitalist means of production to stop exploiting the natural resources of the earth. An important scholar who explains the importance of the capitalist exploitation of nature is Blair Sandler in his article called “Grow or Die: Marxist Theories of Capitalism and the Environment”. He is talking about a green environmental regime, “green” capitalism. Considering that the current environmentalism helps to continue the development of capitalism in an ecological environment, it becomes “green capitalism” by producing “friendly goods” that facilitate environmental pressures of any kind. Sandler is saying that “Many environmental improvements directly increase profits, by increasing efficiency, recycling waste into salable products, and so on. In these cases, it is not difficult to see that capitalist enterprises will take advantage of such opportunities when they are aware of them”[38]. Many reforms must be made to arrive at green capitalism: to reduce energy waste, ban the things that destroy the ozone layer, and reduce the use of chemicals, the use of pesticides in agricultural production. He refers to the “grow or die” doctrine or, in other words, GOD, in which he explains the fact that the capitalist markets have only the commitment to expand, no matter the costs of their activity in terms of the environment. At the end of his article, he says that the GOD doctrine has failed in its purpose, the future being “green capitalism”, which will not allow for the infinite exploitation of nature and the natural resources by individuals: “to construct a discourse that can shift the terrain of environmental debate from market instruments vs. government regulation to a discussion of the mutually constitutive relationship between ecological degradation and exploitative class processes.”[39].
4. The shift from military preparedness to societal “No man’s land”. The realist elements of national power were step-by-step replaced by the so-called social rights. Because the United States remained the only grand power, Francis Fukuyama, in his book called “The End of History and the Last Man”, wrote that the world is heading towards the end of history because democracy prevailed in the face of the Soviet Union. What Fukuyama did not take into consideration is the fact that the Soviet Union was not the only totalitarian communist regime that was present in the world. At the same time, he did not take into account the fact that the former communist apparatus of the Soviet Union was also the “new” political regime that governed Russia. The People’s Republic of China is also another example that Fukuyama ignored and the free Western world has to face its biggest opponent, China, because not only the West was so eager to move its production to China for economic advantages but also because China still represents the most powerful communist country, built upon more than 70 million people who died under the most ruthless dictator that the world has ever seen, Mao Zedong. At the beginning of the 1990s, there was an emphasis on the need to move from realist politics to constructivist policies or, in other words, policies closer and in favor of human beings and countries that have a high level of poverty. On the one hand, an improvement of utmost importance was the Human Development Index, which measures the level of development within a society. On the other hand, this situation started not to take into account anymore the grand theory on which the states were being born. The national interest of a state was not so important anymore, but the societal well-being. The elements of national power were step-by-step put to rest with the conviction that they would not be uncovered again;
5. Technological development. Globalization and the establishment of Big Data Tech companies led to the development of internet access around the world. More and more people had access to the Internet service and, therefore, more and more people contributed to the spread of information. This allowed a series of actors (state and non-state) to a continued process of digitalization and digital information-based gathering of intelligence. Even though the social media industry and the sustainability industry did not develop so much as the years 2000-2020, the access to the internet for the population of the globe marked a significant shift because the people who felt marginalized had the sudden chance to have their voices heard all over the world.

When it comes to the geopolitical changes around the years 1980-1990, the unipolarity of 1990-2000, and the world after the year 2000, there were major changes on the international arena:

1. The acceptance of China within not only the grand economic landscape but also investing large amounts of money and beginning to outsource Western companies in China in order to obtain economic advantages, an action that will prove to be later one of the biggest mistakes the West has ever made. In 1978 and the early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping opened the autarchic Chinese economy, launching a series of economic reforms that targeted the attraction of foreign direct investment in China, which was struggling to hide its capabilities and its real target to counterattack the economy of the United States. One of these reforms involved establishing Special Economic Zones in different major cities (Zhuhai, Shenzhen, and Xiamen). According to a report of the Asian Development Bank, by the year 1985, “the SEZs accounted for more than 20% of the PRC’s FDI”[40];
2. The official establishment of the European Union, based on the Maastricht Treaty, signed on 7^th February 1992; 
3. The total war against terrorism, based on the 11^th September 2011 terrorist attacks on US soil. The George W. Bush Jr. administration started an official war against terrorism. Grounded on these terrorist attacks, the first major terrorist attack on US soil, the United States conducted the war in Afghanistan, which lasted between 2001 and 2021, the main goals being to dismantle the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, which committed the September attacks, and to remove the Taliban regime; the Iraq War based on the false presuppositions that Sadam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction;
4. The expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe, started with the NATO program called “Partnership for Peace” in 1994. The First Wave of Expansion happened in 1999, when Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined NATO; the Second Wave of Expansion came in 2004, with the countries Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Later expansions came in 2009 (Albania and Croatia), Montenegro (2017), North Macedonia (2020), Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024).

2001-2014: The years of neoliberalism, economic interdependency, and the return of warmongers

In the following pages, I would like to underline the most important changes within the years 2001-2013 when it comes not only to the realm of international relations but also in terms of the political, economic and philosophical landscape.

The international relations and philosophical landscapes of this decade are highlighted by the effects of the September 11th terrorist attack on US soil, by a deepening process of cooperation between the members of the European Union, but also by the concept of economic interdependency. The neoliberal point of view establishes the fact that, based on economic cooperation, we can develop a democratic and peaceful environment among ourselves. And, if we can demonstrate that the democratic system is so powerful that it will destroy any thought of war, we can export it also into authoritarian and totalitarian states.

Regarding the political philosophy of this decade, we can distinguish 5 main lines of thought:

1. Postmodernism/Postmodernity, which is the most influential political and sociological line of thought beginning with the 1990s, continuing throughout the decade 2001-2014, and penetrating also the years 2014-2024. Postmodernism represents this deconstruction of reality, in which ideas and ideologies become fragments of a whole, in which identity takes the place of absolute truth, in which everything can be criticized, contradicted, and revolutionized in place of the pre-existing social order. The universality of cultural values, of metanarratives, proposed by the modernist current is in antithesis with the proposals of postmodernism, which takes into account the principle of difference and that of indetermination or, in other words, of fragmentation, as forces of liberation from the idealized cage of modernism. This theory embraces the Critical Theory and neo-Marxism, adapting them to the idea of modernity. The deconstruction of modernity can be understood as how we arrive at a historical moment and how modernity has contributed to our perspective on things. Postmodernity disputes the fact that the moral or epistemological proposition can be beyond any doubt, always questioning the basis of knowledge and how a society has acquired certain moral principles. Postmodernism is a philosophical, political, and social movement that denies any connection with the past represented by reason used as an instrument to control the nature of things and human beings, redefining traditional notions and values ​​of good and evil in close connection with events taking place on an international level. David Harvey, in his work “The Condition of Postmodernity”, underlines that, while the Enlightenment defined reason as an instrument without considering the divine element, postmodernism is characterized by a rediscovery of man’s relationship with the Divine, taking into account the advantages brought by reason: “the Enlightenment affirmation of ‘self without God’ in the end negated itself because, reason, a means, was left, in the absence of God’s truth, without any spiritual or moral goal […] The postmodern theological project is to reaffirm God’s truth without abandoning the powers of reason”[41]. The keywords proposed by the postmodernist movement are fragmentation, deconstruction, anarchy, chaos, discontinuity, interdependence, and identity, elements that are sometimes also found in the modernist movement, but which postmodernism radicalizes and propels towards the analysis of sociologists, psychoanalysts, and philosophers.
2. As a consequence of postmodernist thought, there will develop in the next years the so-called gender politics, which represents the true aberration of the end of the 20^th century and the beginning of the 21^st century. The main author who began the political movement of gender activism was Judith Butler. In an article she has written, she questioned the very nature of human being. In her words, gender is not given by our nature as human beings or by God at birth, but it is our choice. Gender becomes a social construct, it does not preexist the gesture of parents to tell him that he is a boy or a girl, but appears later by simply assigning the role, the gender label. It creates the possibility that at least in terms of gender, those in this community will appropriate the gender discourse, a form of revolt against the authority. They start with male and female, she male, transsexual, inventing dozens of genders. Gender is one of the social constructs that has a perfect appearance: when the child is born, it is nothing, it is “it”: “gender is not a radical choice or project that reflects a merely individual choice, but neither is it imposed or inscribed upon the individual, as some post-structuralist displacements of the subject would contend. The body is not passively scripted with cultural codes, as if it were a lifeless recipient of wholly pre-given cultural relations. But neither do embodied selves pre-exist the cultural conventions which essentially signify bodies”[42].
3. Conservatism, promoted by a key figure of these years, Roger Scruton, who opposes, in an elegant manner, the current of postmodernism and the emerging political correctness, which is the child of postmodernist thought. Roger Scruton was a British philosopher and a public intellectual, who was a prominent advocate for tradition, Christian religion and moral responsibility. Having the authority, tradition, and the value of national identity, Roger Scruton was heavily criticizing the fragmentation of postmodernity, which is a current that rejects the objective Truth, transforming it into a multitude of several truths, everyone extracting the truth they desire. When the objective Truth dies, it also dies the tradition that formed it because the Truth has a very solid basis. If the fundament upon which the Truth is built is destroyed, the tradition and the cultural heritage of a nation will dissolve. In his book called “The West and the Rest”, which was published in 2002, he highlights that “While exhorting us to be as “inclusive” as we can, to discriminate neither in thought, word, nor deed against ethnic, sexual, or behavioral minorities, political correctness encourages the denigration of what is felt to be most especially ours”[43]. When it comes to the objective truth, he says: “In place of the Enlightenment emphasis on reason as the path to objective truth has come the “view from outside,” in which our entire tradition of learning is put in question as a preliminary to its rejection”[44]. Regarding the Critical Theory, neo-Marxism and the philosophers that are positioning themselves in favor of postmodernism, Roger Scruton beautifully argues that “Each of them owes his reputation to a kind of religious faith: faith in the relativity of all opinions, including this one. For this is the faith on which a new form of membership is founded—a first-person plural of denial”[45].
4. The tremendous development of the high-tech industry and the beginning of the social media phenomenon. After the Internet arrived on every continent, the rise of the social media industry, websites, and online platforms gained a big momentum. The establishment of Facebook in the year 2004, YouTube in 2005, Twitter in the year 2006, and Instagram in 2010 marked the way in which people could communicate with one another from different continents and repositioned the freedom of expression on another level. More and more people not only have access to the Internet, but they started to feel a sense of ownership of their own list of friends, movies they like, individuals they get in contact with, and the opinions they express publicly and privately. The development of the first iPhone by Steve Jobs represented a revolution in terms of the high-tech industry and opened a new era, the era of smartphones. There was no stopping now. Companies started to produce smartphones for every taste, the marketing for the high-tech was very much in vogue, and the public opinion, the printed press, the magazines moved a lot of their fans and loyal readers to the online area, where they started to publish their own articles and opinions. But this movement, as good as it sounds, opened Pandora’s Box in terms of economic competition and certain views regarding human nature. Digitalization and the new revolution in technology will prove that human beings cannot control well their emotions and, even if a few technological geniuses (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg) revolutionized the way we interact with each other, this will not be enough. At the same time, not only the people as individual beings were pleased with this revolution in their hands, but also the states. Little by little, the totalitarian and authoritarian states started to take piece by piece in terms of the high-tech industrial market and to take advantage of human curiosity, but also possessiveness. 
5. The Green Movement. Before taking into consideration the most important geopolitical implications of the decade, there is one more problem to address: the Green Movement. Starting in the 1980s but gaining momentum after the year 2000, taking into consideration also the eco-marxism theory, the Green Movement began to find more and more followers. In the 2000s, the main problem with which the planet was facing was “Global Warming”. According to this movement, therefore, humanity, which can be regarded as contributing to the global warming through the use of old industrial technology, should be careful in tolerating the phenomenon of pollution, but also the greenhouse-gas effect. Kyoto Protocols were signed. Thus global warming started to arrive also at the international roundtables until it reached its peak within the next decade. 

Let’s get back now to the geopolitical aspects of this decade. Based on the 11th September 2001 terrorist attacks, the United States came up with a worldview that would change the phenomenon of terrorism at international levels no one has seen before. Within the National Security Strategy of the United States of 2002, terrorism meant: “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents”[46]. Therefore, in 2001, NATO activated Article 5 of the NATO Treaty against the terrorist threat. All of the NATO members agreed in October 2001 that Article 5 of the treaty to be activated. The consequences of this were the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. This action was also taken by the United with the scope of exporting democratic values within the authoritarian and totalitarian states, an action which was doomed to fail.

The second action taken by the United States in an attempt to democratize the Middle East was to capitalize on the Arab Spring during the Obama administration, which was a series of protests within the Middle East against the dictatorships of mostly fanatical leaders. From the Arab Spring, a chain of consequences followed, including the Syrian civil war which ended in 2024, the Yemen War, and the rise of the Islamic State.

On the one hand, when it comes to the relationship between the United States and China, the former made a major mistake also in the year 2001: China was formally accepted as a full member of the World Trade Organization (11^th December 2001), with a strong lobby made by the former Clinton administration, obtaining also the title of “The Most Favored Nation”. The Most Favored Nation means that a country enjoys the same trade advantages (lower tariffs and fewer trade barriers) as the “most favored” trading partner of another country. The Legal Information Institute gives a broad definition of this international principle: “Most favored nation refers to a status conferred by a clause in which a country promises that it will treat another country as well as it treats any other country that receives preferential treatment”[47]. Although China agreed to respect the terms and conditions, it has a mixed record within the international economic organization: even if China became deeply integrated within the supply chain international management, becoming the world’s largest exporter in 2009, China pursued its own national interest because more and more developed and rich countries within the European Union were more and more dependent on what China had to offer to the world. Developing thus its economic hydra, China also began to be involved in international economic relations, starting to slowly build its own economic empire across its borders and to its neighbors. The opening of its markets to foreign trade, goods and services, was fully advantageous for China because, while China became the world’s manufacturer, from small and low-quality goods and services to high-tech big and very high-quality products, the Western economy (i.e. the Western companies) became more and more dependent on the economic advantages they extracted out of China.

Because the Chinese population is so massive, the Chinese Communist Party did not think of working conditions or international labor rules and regulations. For the CCP, the most important part was the economic zero-sum game. While my country is very quickly developing from the money the richest states are pouring into my country, they become more and more dependent in the years to come. On top of that, China gained know-how, exploiting (using a Marxist word) all the help it could get from the West. Moreover, despite the rules of the WTO regarding the unfair subsidies, the CCP provided significant support for the state-owned enterprises which will play a crucial role in the years to come. The CCP will use the strategy of “hide its capabilities, bind its time” to develop into a warmonger approximately 10 years later. Soon it will become the biggest enemy of the free world, democracy, and freedom of speech since 1991.

On the other hand, Russia was not cured of the totalitarian scourge from the past. Therefore, a former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin became the authoritarian ruler of the Russian Federation from 1999 until the present times and still counting. The Russian Federation will be the first major warmonger if we take into consideration nation-states. Masking his true desires to make Russia minimum a regional superpower once more, Vladimir Putin told the free world his intention to fight international terrorism after 9/11. Establishing closer and closer economic ties with the European Union, he started to make Russia the biggest supplier of oil and gas in Europe, making Europe completely dependent on the Russian energy supply. This massive energy project arrived at its peak with the construction of Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the two pipelines that made Germany completely linked to Russia for cheap resources. Russia did not liberalize itself. On the contrary, Vladimir Putin began to eliminate his political opponents (Anna Politkovskaia, Alexandr Litvinenko), and the Western powers, including the United States, did absolutely nothing to stop Russia from its acts.

At the NATO Summit in Bucharest, when the accession of Ukraine was put on the table, Angela Germany, represented by the former Chancellor Angela Merkel, opposed accepting Ukraine into the NATO alliance. Because the West thought to penetrate the Russian sphere of influence, it was faced with a test: the Georgian War of the same year, 2008. The Russian-Georgian War of 2008 between the Russian forces and the military forces of Georgia coordinated under the surveillance of Mikhail Sakaasvili established the most powerful political crisis between Russia and the Western world since the end of the Cold War and represented the critical point which attracted the attention of the Western countries and organizations, namely the European Union or NATO. A good description of the impact of the war on the Western countries is made by Ronald D. Asmus: “It shocked a West that had become complacent in its belief that war in Europe had become a thing of the past and thus ignored the warning signs that conflict was brewing between Moscow and Tbilisi […] this little war shook the belief that a democratic and cooperative peace had triumphed in Europe twenty years after the Iron Curtain fell and that the kind of geopolitical competition and spheres of influence […] had been banished.”[48]. Unfortunately, the war did not open the eyes of the international arena, which was not psychologically prepared to face the outbreak of a new war that was seen as a shock for the Western world.

The second crisis that Russia orchestrated was the annexation of Crimea in 2014. This triggered a reaction of the West, too blind to see what was happening, and too eager to maintain further economic relations with the monster created with Western money. Even though the West did impose a set of little sanctions against this aggression act made by Russia, the Russian gas and oil will still flow to the European Union as if nothing happened.

[1] Hans J. MORGENTHAU, “Politics among Nations. The Struggle for Power and Peace“, New York, 1948, p. 13, accessed at https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/4034050/mod_resource/content/1/Hans%20J.%20Morgenthau-Politics%20among%20nations_%20the%20struggle%20for%20power%20and%20peace%20%20-A.%20A.%20Knopf%20%281948%29.pdf on 10.01.2025

[2] Ibidem, p. 13

[3] Ibidem, p. 14

[4] Ibidem, p. 80

[5] Ibidem, p. 83

[6] Ibidem, p. 86

[7] Ibidem, pp. 88-89

[8] Ibidem, p. 91

[9] Ibidem, p. 98

[10] Ibidem, p. 100

[11] Ibidem, p. 100

[12] Ibidem, p. 105

[13] Georg LUKACS, “History and Class Conciousness”, Merlin Press, 1967, p. 59, accessed at https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/lukacs/history_and_class_consciousness_georg_lukacs.pdf on 12.01.2025

[14] Memorandum, President Nixon to Henry Kissinger, RE: Exploring possibilities of Rapprochement With China (Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Security Council Files, Box 1033, 1^st of February 1969, accessed at https://www.nixonfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Memo-Nixon-to-Kissinger-2-1-1969.jpg on 13.01.2025

[15] “First Annual Report to the Congress on United States Foreign Policy for the 1970’s”, The American Presidency Project, 17^th February 1970, accessed at https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/first-annual-report-the-congress-united-states-foreign-policy-for-the-1970s on 13.01.2025

[16] “Memorandum”, The White House, Washington, 1^st July 1971, accessed at https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/ch-33.pdf on 14.01.2025

[17] “Memorandum for Henry A. Kissinger”, The White House, Washington, 29^th July 1971, Talks between 4:35 and 11:20 PM on 9^th of July 1971, p. 3, accessed at https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/ch-34.pdf on 14.01.2025

[18] Ibidem, p. 4

[19] Ibidem, p. 4

[20] Ibidem, p. 4

[21] Ibidem, p. 6

[22] Ibidem, p. 6

[23] Ibidem, p. 7

[24] Ibidem, p. 10

[25] Ibidem, p. 10

[26] Ibidem, p. 10

[27] Ibidem, p. 10

[28] Ibidem, p. 12

[29] Ibidem, p. 12

[30] Ibidem, p. 15

[31] “Memorandum for Henry A. Kissinger”, The White House, Washington, 6^th August 1971, Talks between 12:10 PM and 6:00 PM on 10^th of July 1971, p. 17, accessed at https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/ch-35.pdf on 14.01.2025

[32] Ibidem, p. 17

[33] THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.　

Recalling the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.　

Considering the restoration of the lawful rights of the People’s Republic of China is essential both for the protection of the Charter of the United Nations and for the cause that the United Nations must serve under the Charter.

Recognizing that the representatives of the Government of the People’s Republic of China are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations and that the People’s Republic of China is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Decides to restore all its rights to the People’s Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its Government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations, and to expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and in all the organizations related to it.

United Nations, “Facts on File”, American Institute in Taiwan, 1971, p. 825, accessed at https://web-archive-2017.ait.org.tw/en/un-res-2758-voted-to-admit-communist-china.html on 14.01.2025

[34] “Taiwan Relations Act”, Public Law 96-8 96th Congress, 10^th April 1979, p. 1, accessed at https://www.congress.gov/96/statute/STATUTE-93/STATUTE-93-Pg14.pdf on 14.01.2025

[35] “The Six Assurances of 1982”, 25^th July 2023, Formosan Association for Public Affairs, accessed at https://fapa.org/six-assurances/ on 14.01.2025

[36] Alexander WENDT, “Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics”, International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Spring, 1992), p. 398, accessed at http://www.jstor.org/stable/270685 on 12.01.2025

[37] Ibidem, p. 417

[38] Blair SANDLER, “Grow or Die: Marxist Theories of Capitalism and the Environment”, Rethinking Marxism, 7:2, 5^th January 2009, p. 51, accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08935699408658097 on 14.01.2025

[39] Ibidem, p. 55

[40] Avraham EBENSTEIN, “Winners and Losers of Multinational Firm Entry into Developing Countries: Evidence from the Special Economic Zones of the People’s Republic of China”, Asian Development Bank, No. 276, October 2011, p. 3, accessed at https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/29286/economics-wp276.pdf on 13.01.2024

[41] Harvey, D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. [e-book] Cambridge: Blackwell, accessed on 15.01.2024

[42] Judith BUTLER, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”, Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec. 1988), p. 526

[43] Roger SCRUTON, “The West and the Rest. Globalization and the Terrorist Threat”, ISI Books, 2002, pp. 72-73

[44] Ibidem, p. 73

[45] Ibidem, p. 75

[46] „The National Security Strategy of the United States”, September 2002, p. 5, accessed at https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/63562.pdf on 15.01.2025

[47] “most favored nation”, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, accessed at https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/most_favored_nation on 15.01.2025

[48] Ronald D. ASMUS, “A Little War that Shook the World. Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West”, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2010, p. 226