A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order by Richard Haass (Penguin Putnam – 352pp – £21.99 – ISBN 978-0-3995-6236-5)

Moving at a disconcertingly accelerated clip, contemporary reality encroaches on visions of a dystopian world until recently confined to the realm of horror fiction. Featuring newspeak, doublethink, and memory hole – all currently accepted practices – George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, first published in 1949 and never out of print, again shot to the top of bestsellers lists, as did Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) which depicts life in New England – a theocratic dictatorship which takes power, scraps the constitution, and reduces women to mere vessels for breeding.

In fact, Amazon’s Top 10 in Political Fiction is crowded with rediscovered works on the fragility of democracy and civilisation. Perhaps as powerful as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here (1935) – number three bestseller on the list – offers a chilling read as it details the rise to power of Berzelius Windrip who defeats the liberal incumbent with an appeal to patriotism and family values, promising radical social and economic reform, only to impose totalitarian rule on Washington.

Whereas a few years ago such apocalyptic visions were rather easily dismissed, the pronounced cognitive dissonance that afflicts increasingly large cohorts of voters from the United States to France, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and elsewhere has severely unhinged liberal certainties, ushering in an era of topsy-turvy truths and steroid-boosted spin.

The centre has ceded its ground as the margins moved mainstream. That is the central tenet of A World is Disarray by Richard Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations and senior Middle East policy advisor to President George HW Bush. Whilst Mr Haass reviews and analyses global affairs with commendable calm and reason – he is not one to hit the panic button at the first sign of trouble – the author concludes that the global trend slides towards declining order. He detects a departure from four centuries of diplomatic history and practice with the emergence of a multipolar world characterised by ambitious and assertive regional powers that are willing to sacrifice democratic principles and diplomatic convention in order to meet their manifest destinies.

Mr Haass also notes the growing gap between challenges and responses at both global, regional, and national levels. This, in turn, leads to political dysfunction as established structures are unable to deal with technological innovation, environmental changes, and the reordering of geopolitical forces. Focused on US foreign policy, Mr Haass expects his country to experience difficulties in designing and implementing an agenda that can lessen global tensions and help the world avoid conflict – for better or worse, the manifest destiny of the United States.

Writing in the wake of Henry Kissinger (World Order, 2014) and Zbigniew Brzezinski (Strategic Vision. America and the Crisis of Global Power, 2013), Mr Haass also stresses the historical context against which today’s developments unfold. Curiously, he remarks, the world becomes ever more fragmented as it gets interconnected. Instead of cultural dialogues, the global village has descended into a cacophony of monologues.

A case in point Mr Haass introduces is Britain’s attempt to extract itself from the European Union – an exercise he deems foolish. Speaking on CNBC television’s Squawk Box, the author recently explained that, melodramatics aside, “the European project is three quarters of a century old. People take its peace and prosperity for granted. There is too much emphasis on the negatives of the EU such as the inefficiencies and over-regulation. However, this is playing with history and people are going to look back on this and consider it a colossal mistake.”

According to Mr Haass, Brexit shows the perils of governing by referendum: “People went to the polls without the full understanding of the consequences of what they were setting in motion. In fact, a considerable number of voters just wanted to express their disapproval of the general state of affairs in the nation. In other words: voters provided an answer to a question not asked. That is no way to determine any nation’s destiny.”

Mr Haass sees the United States playing a necessary, and possibly even indispensable, role in carrying a large portion of the burden of creating and maintaining order at regional and global level. Domestic dynamics, such as the election of “America First” Donald Trump, threaten to remove the United States from the equation. That, to Mr Haass, is a problem: “No other country or group of countries has either the capacity or the mind-set to build a global order and maintain it.”

The Trump Administration would be well advised to tone down the rhetoric and show loyalty to its allies. “If America comes to be doubted, it will inevitably give rise to a very different and much less orderly world,” says Mr Haass who predicts two possibly reactions: some lone countries would inevitably fall under the sway of more powerful states, whilst others – already part of a larger entity – can be expected to take matters into their own hands in ways that may not serve US objectives or those of a stable world order. Mr Haass thinks that both options undermine the delicate balance of power and thus promote disarray: “The two together are nothing short of toxic.”

Sadly, whilst a keen observer, Mr Haass is somewhat less gifted when it comes to providing effective solutions or pointing the way forwards. It is all good and well to depict President Vladimir Putin of Russia as a subversive who willingly and knowingly undermines global order, Mr Haass offers few suggestions on how to deal with the Kremlin and shield Russia’s neighbours from its advances without risking a major conflagration. The same goes for trigger-happy Kim Jong-un in North Korea and his puppeteers in China.

Here’s a suggestion though: as long as most western powers engage in navel-gazing – plying domestic audiences with platitudes, fake facts, jingoistic slogans, and cheap remedies to complex issues – they lose the right to claim the moral high ground from where to lecture the less-well enlightened. The Trumps, Farages, Le Pens, and Wilders of this world are, in fact, little better than the fictional President Windrip in Lewis Sinclair’s It Can’t Happen Here who relentlessly attacks his liberal enemies for adding layers of subtlety and complexity to issues and problems he simply cannot grasp. Just like the rest of us – and that’s the scary bit.

© 2023 Photo by Gage Skidmore