‘Trump is not the cause of the West’s decline … He is its consequence’

‘Amitav Acharya, Distinguished Professor of International Relations at American University, and author of ‘The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West’ (2025), draws on 5,000 years of history to argue that the world order has never been a western monopoly, adding that its decline signals not collapse but a return to a historically normal multi-civilizational system. He calls this the ‘multiplex world’: many powers, norms and institutions operating simultaneously under one roof, with no single state setting the rules for all. In this interview, he speaks with Brigadier Anil Raman (retired) on the structural forces reshaping global power, U.S. President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the liberal order, the Iran war, and what India must do to navigate the world that comes next.

Your work has argued since 2014 that the American world order is in structural decline. And yet [Donald] Trump is bombing Iran, engineering regime change in Venezuela, and extracting sweeping concessions from India. If this is decline, what would dominance actually look like?

The key distinction is between the decline of the United States as a power and the end of the order it built. I have never said [that] the U.S. is declining. On military, financial, and technology indices it remains number one. What is over is the liberal international order: the multilateralism, the collective goods, the promotion of democracy. What Mr. Trump is doing is not that. It is transactional, unilateral, personal. When he weaponises tariffs, he is cashing in the institutional inheritance of the liberal order. That is not strength. That is a hegemon monetising what remains of its credibility.

You have described the liberal order as resting on four pillars: free trade, multilateral institutions, democracy promotion, and alliances. Mr. Trump has systematically attacked all four. But does he have any coherent order of his own to replace it?

He hates all four. Free trade: a con job that cost American workers. Institutions: the UN, IMF, WTO have ripped the United States off. Democracy: he does not care. Alliances: he threatened Canada and Denmark. All four elements the U.S. built after the Second World War, Mr. Trump is dismantling. As for a replacement: there is none. Just chaos as a tool of foreign policy. He said he would never attack Iran. He attacked Iran. He said regime change was over. He did Venezuela. The western world kept insisting that it was a short-term aberration. It is not. The order is gone.

So, Mr. Trump is the product of systemic decline, not its cause?

Precisely. When Mr. Trump was elected in 2016, I updated my book with exactly that argument: he is the consequence of the decline, not its cause. He exploited genuine grievances against globalisation, against institutions, against the liberal establishment. [Joe] Biden came in wanting to revive the order. Mr. Trump has now ended it permanently. What surprised even those of us who foresaw this is the speed and scale of the destruction.

India signed a trade deal [with the U.S.] under intense tariff pressure, apparently giving up Russian oil imports and committing $500 billion in purchases. Does that represent a defeat for Indian strategic autonomy?

India was too hasty. I was in [External Affairs Minister S.] Jaishankar’s office in Delhi the very day the tariff announcements came. He told me: ‘We are going to ride this out. India was holding its ground, like the other BRICS.’ But [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi apparently overruled that. If India has genuinely given up Russian oil and accepted zero tariffs on American goods in exchange for only 19% on Indian exports, that is not a good deal. India could have waited. The [U.S.] Supreme Court would likely have struck down many of those tariffs anyway. Mr. Trump has such leverage because every country became dependent on U.S. market access. That dependence is the real problem.

Beyond the trade deal, what is your broader prescription for Indian foreign policy in this era? Where is India making its biggest mistakes?

India’s biggest strategic problem is the obsession with Pakistan. That energy should go toward pragmatic engagement with China. Lie low, build resilience, take advantage of Chinese economic opportunity — that is exactly what China did with Japan for decades before asserting itself. Do not brag about power you do not yet have. There is also a normative opportunity being wasted. With its democratic credentials and non-aligned instincts, India could occupy the space [that] the U.S. has vacated. But the current government does not care about that role. India also needs to repair relations with its neighbours. You cannot afford to have them constantly complicating your problems.

Your multiplex model is quite distinct from multipolarity. Given that Mr. Trump is exercising raw power and subjugating countries one by one, does the multiplex framework still hold?

Multiplex is not multipolarity. Multipolarity simply counts great powers and measures military and economic weight. The multiplex world describes the actual architecture of order: corporations, non-state actors, regional bodies, civil society, climate coalitions, all operating simultaneously. And here is the decisive point: Mr. Trump cannot determine outcomes in many domains. He can destroy. He cannot change regimes. Venezuela proves that. The U.S. in 1990 had hard and soft power and could mobilise allies, write rules, shape outcomes. What we see today is a power that can cause destruction but cannot construct order. That is precisely what the end of order looks like.

How might the Iran war reshape international order: does it strengthen U.S. dominance or weaken it, and how?

I would argue that the U.S. has already suffered a loss of credibility and soft power erosion even [if] it manages to muddle through the conflict. Iran will survive and its government will remain. It is the U.S. that might see a regime change due to domestic disapproval of the war. Unlike the U.S.-led victory in Iraq in 1991, which produced a “unipolar moment”, this war is the short-term usher in the “world-minus-one moment”, or the near total isolation of the U.S. in the world stage. Ultimately, it will hasten the end of U.S. global hegemony and pave the way for the emergence of what I have called a multiplex world in which not only one or a handful of great powers but also middle powers and regional powers will have more autonomy and [a] share of global leadership. Despite its vast military power, America will be distrusted and have to settle for a less prominent role in the global political, economic and diplomatic scene than has been the case since the [Second] World War.

What does American foreign engagement look like in a post-Trump era? Is there any recovery possible for the institutional architecture that Mr. Trump has demolished?

The trust is gone. Every major partner has spent the Trump years reducing dependence on the U.S.. The EU-India deal, EU-Mercosur, Canada turning towards China: that reorganisation will not reverse even after Mr. Trump. And if a future President wants to rebuild, they will find the architecture already dismantled. The WTO weakened, NATO fractured, normative authority spent. American engagement going forward will be, at best, mis-engagement: self-serving, selective, unpredictable.

Looking ahead to 2035, what is the greatest structural challenge to the international system?

Two things concern me most. First, nuclear war: not U.S.-Iran, but India-Pakistan, North Korea, or Russia if pushed into a corner. If Russia believes that it faces existential defeat, it will use tactical nuclear weapons. Second, climate change. Beyond those two, I am more optimistic than people expect. The fear of disorder is highest in the West, not the Global South. China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam are not losing sleep over this. When people say the world is on fire, ask who started these fires. In almost every case since 9/11, the answer is western intervention.

Amitav Acharya is Distinguished Professor of International Relations at American University, Washington DC, and UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance. He is the first non-western scholar to have led the International Studies Association . Brigadier Anil Raman (retired) heads the American Studies programme at the Takshashila Institution, Bangalore