The end of the Liberal International Order

Trump, Maduro and Multipolarity

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The end of the Liberal International Order

The analysis presented in the last edition of Independence Captured was confirmed, soon after its publication, in the form of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy. If you have not read the piece, it is worth doing so as an introduction and big picture overview.

Scottish Nationalism in the Multipolar Age set out an analytical framework for interpreting events as part of an overarching process of restructuring in the world system. This is defined by the end of the institution building attendant to the post-1945 “rules-based order” and the conclusion of American unipolarity after the fall of the Soviet Union. In its place, we see the emergence and construction of zones of influence, in which regional superpowers are consolidating their own spheres and negotiating the outcome of the post-American era. The Trump administration is facilitating this process, aiming to reduce global burdens while maintaining influence through economic leverage, selective engagement, and a reset of strategic partnerships.

This historic development is tied to underlying dynamics in global capitalism, in which the Global South represents the future for economic growth at the same time as the dollar weakens as the worlds reserve currency, compounded by a series of American foreign policy calamities enacted through consecutive administrations. Trump, a cipher for private sector and corporate interests, is repackaging American retreat as nationalistic renaissance against this backdrop. The dawning of the multipolar era is a top-down exercise involving a series of trade-offs between the major powers. In practice, for the United States, this means asserting control over the Western hemisphere while securing subjugated Europe as a protectorate.

Trump’s rhetoric in 2025 about Canada and Greenland, therefore, fits into a wider reorientation of American grand strategy. The comments came as his administration set about tearing up global soft-power networks in the form of defunding USAID, while repurposing the CIA to focus on America’s traditional allies. The plan is spelled out in the National Security Strategy: “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.”

The document railed against what it described as Europe’s “civilisational erasure,” and amplified far-right insurgencies. As previously argued, this has less to do with ideological collusion on the transatlantic radical right and more to do with the promotion of internal fragmentation in Europe, through the kind of tactics normally reserved for colonial domination elsewhere in the world. As Laurel Rapp of Chatam House writes: “The US will cultivate transatlantic ethno-nationalist movements. But it will not meddle elsewhere. It’s the most revealing and dramatic contradiction in the strategy, and it breaks with decades of US stated policy.”

The security strategy goes on: “We will work with allies and partners to maintain global and regional balances of power to prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries.” It is this process of hegemonic decomposition which is now unfolding, configuring as it does the post-liberal international order. This will reflect back into the domestic scene, altering the nature of our society, economy, and democracy. That includes Scotland, its relationship with the British state, and its interaction with the reorganisation of global and regional power. For supporters of Scottish independence, this presents new challenges, necessitating a reappraisal of what national self-determination in these radically changed conditions means in practice.

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The Meaning of the Maduro Abduction

It is against this backdrop that the illegal kidnapping of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro should be understood. The brazenly imperial nature of the “operation” in Venezuela and the lack of pretence that it is remotely concerned with democracy or human rights is by design. Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth are very clear: this is about thieving resources, asserting regional power in the image of the Monroe Doctrine, and cultivating impunity as a mechanism to eliminate the remnants of international law. Such clarity is meant to amplify the geopolitical shift, as are the mafia-esque images of the president, posted on official White House social media channels.

The United States is sending a message to its near neighbours that it intends to impose a system of totalising control throughout the hemisphere, whether that be in Caracas or Nuuk. To China, on the other hand, the transmission is rather different. They have been granted permission to consolidate their own sphere in various ways, as have other emerging regional superpowers. This does not mean rivalry has been extinguished. The United States intends on controlling Venezuelan oil to the cost of China and Russia, who will retain access but at a higher price. This will not be an easy process, given the state of refinement infrastructure and the quality of oil in sanction hit Venezuela. Come what may, competition is in the DNA of global capitalism. Yet at this moment, there is also a semblance of alignment, however temporary, in bringing the post-American order into being through the establishment of zonal power blocs.

This realignment will be subject to all manner of political, economic, and military explosions. The course of these events is always open to disruption and derailment, including the problems associated with popular opposition and resistance. But imperial planners in Washington have also learned from previous misadventures. Thus, the approach to Venezuela is different from the catastrophic and illegal invasion of Iraq, a shadow which looms large over military and State Department calculations.

There is no attempt to nation build or to occupy militarily. Nor to pursue a so-called “democratic transition.” Trump has ruled out manoeuvres to install, through democratic or other means, María Corina Machado, held aloft as a liberal hero. Indeed, the architecture of the Venezuelan state has been left intact. The idea is to use the decapitation of its leadership and the chokehold over its oil industry, aided by the major oil firms, to forcibly coerce the remaining apparatus into following American orders in the service of Wall Street firms and transnational private sector interests.

As if to clarify the strategic imperatives driving the United States, the State Department released an image of Donald Trump with the words, “this is our hemisphere,” following the logic in the new security strategy, which states in black and white: “hegemony is the wrong thing to want, and it wasn’t achievable.” But a revolution half-made is fatal. That the United States has reached such a tipping point means that every stop will be pulled to assert dominance over its interests. That includes the defenestration of Europe and redefining the transatlantic alliance.

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The European Response

The response from European capitals to the seizure of Maduro illustrated the demise of Europe as an independent bloc within the world system. As it is, European and British leaders could not condemn the blatant upending of international law. Keir Starmer and other UK Government representatives mustered up a meandering word salad to avoid chastising the White House, an approach shared by Emmanuel Macron and Frederich Merz. Such a craven response not only undermined those leaders as individuals, but exposed the lack of agency the states they represent have on the world stage.

In the Financial Times, Henry Foy posits that they are, “fearful that Trump could ban supplies of arms or intelligence to Ukraine or undermine US security guarantees to Europe,” and as such have, “bent over backwards to avoid upsetting him, choosing deference over defending their principles even when he directly menaces the continent with trade tariffs or threats against their digital rules.” In this sense, Ukraine is being consciously utilised by the United States as a device to cage Europe in as a dependency.

Now, the transatlantic relationship is based more emphatically on the logic of one way extraction. Europe is transforming into a manufacturing hub to retool the American arms economy, reported as “a historic surge in military spending” and a “buying spree of advanced US equipment that will lock European forces into American systems for decades.” The United States is also perfectly willing to disrupt Nato to pressure European states into alignment with its objectives. As Wolfgang Munchau writes: “Europe will not fight the US, and it is not in a position to abandon Nato. The European Union’s dependence on the United States is absolute.”

There is no doubt about the veracity of the threats to Greenland as the United States goes in search of its rare earth minerals and unnamed “security interests.” But annexation and resource exploitation will come as a result of leveraging Europe’s dependence on the United States through arm twisting and economic incentives rather than bombs. Nato countries will accept any humiliation if it keeps the alliance even nominally together. The structural factors at play mean the future of Europe and of Britain is under the heel of the United States, itself a declining empire wrestling with its own retrenchment, producing unpredictable outcomes. After the seizure of Maduro, Europe and Britain’s sovereignty is expiring at quickening pace.

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American Universalism vs Spheres of Influence

American liberals and neoconservatives have been at the forefront of pursuing a universalising project and of opposing the “spheres of influence” model. There are important reasons for this outside of the struggle for “full spectrum dominance,” the Bush administration doctrine based on, “dominance across the entire spectrum of conflict from conventional war through to irregular forms of conflict,” in order to, “prolong its position of primacy,” at a hegemonic level. Namely, that the United States is understood to be a globalising enterprise, in which the concepts of democracy, human rights, international rules, and free markets are unlocked on a planetery basis.

These stated values were always infused with hypocrisy and underwritten by hard power, military supremacy, and economic exploitation. But they also formed the framework for the American ideal and the narrative foundation for its export. Now, this ideological structure has been shattered, in favour of predatory transactional power without the window dressing. The end of the “rules-based order” comes as part of a longer-term erosion that can be evidenced well before the Trump Administration. Strategic interests have been prioritised over international law as a matter of course, whether that be the Iraq war under Bush, or the Gaza genocide under Biden. But it is the retreat to the Western hemisphere and American belligerence towards allies which distorts Atlanticism and terminates post-war certainties, since Western states only emphasise international law when it coincides with their interests, and not as a matter of principle.

The reconfiguration of the American empire comes out of necessity, in part borne from the wars and overextension in the Middle East, coupled with the rise of economic and geopolitical peer competitors. This process has little to do with Trump’s personality or impulses, but reflects the structurally embedded problems of empire management. Hints of recalibration could be found under Obama, who traded boots on the ground for covert drone wars. But his presidency was marked by yet another costly foreign policy failure in Libya, which destroyed the country, caused untold civilian misery, and further destabilised the region.

The disastrous “war on terror,” combined with the 2008 financial crisis, generated tremors domestically which have precipitated high levels of domestic polarisation, economic uncertainty, and political alienation. As capital stakes out alternative arenas for investment and growth, maintaining the United States as a hegemonic venture met its limitations. The strategic pivot underway will also entail a reimagining of philosophical horizons in this context. No longer is the pretence to liberal ideals or international institutions required. This is dramatised for popular consumption through Trump’s grotesque style and his administration’s ostentatious assault on institutions and norms both foreign and domestic. But these developments are not a Trumpian aberration. They are materially rooted in the changing structure of the world economy and the declining status, in relative but measurable terms, of American power and prestige within the global state system.

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Scottish Questions

The First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, has aligned with the broad and weak European response to events. The Scottish Government will continue to walk this path, taking its lead from the European core and, indeed, the British state. While the SNP are gearing up for an election campaign which will rhetorically centre on Scottish independence, the global backdrop means breaking up the United Kingdom and setting up a new state equipped with its own central banking system is not on the table for the SNP leadership as a real prospect. Independence is solely a method to establish communication with its electoral base.

Scotland, the vassal of a vassal, will face critical questions about its future in a changing world and about the impact these historic events will have on domestic politics. The Scottish national movement must confront the geopolitical questions and challenges that arise if it is to survive as an intellectual endeavour that can form the basis of a new independence movement for new times.

The collapse of the international system as we have known it will redefine national priorities, shape public life, and upend long-standing assumptions about governance and democracy. In coming editions, we will examine Scotland’s strategic position and the consequences the global transition may have for both domestic politics and the national question.