The seed of all of these advances was Trump’s somewhat unreflective imposition of U.S. interests at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. This clear expression of transactional expectations has obliged other states to make decisions based on their own interests. The resulting shared interests have compounded to become the standpoint from which the United States has gained the leverage to move the Earth. That the U.S. foreign policy establishment still fails to acknowledge this just proves Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s adage that “in a mad world only the mad are sane.” It is in the interests of the United States that it take sides, for only then can other states really join it, and only then can it apply leverage. That it took Trump to reassert the primacy of U.S. interests against the continuing opposition of the professionalized elite that is supposed to protect them does not speak well for them.

Douglas Bulloch holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and is an international relations scholar based in Hong Kong. 

Image: Reuters.