Embracing pragmatic transactional realism to survive Trump’s world

As global leaders gather in Davos for the World Economic Forum last week, the atmosphere appears to be shifting fundamentally. The long era of the liberal international order seems to be fading, replaced by a new and colder reality that could be best described as pragmatic transactional realism.

To understand this profound change, we might look to the words of Niccolo Machiavelli, who famously noted that the promise given was a necessity of the past while the word broken is a necessity of the present. This cynical wisdom appears to guide the strategy of United States President Donald Trump in his second term, as he moves to dismantle the system America once built to serve a new national purpose.

The liberal international order stood on three main pillars that provided global stability for decades: collective security through treaties like NATO, economic openness promoting free trade and respect for international institutions like the United Nations.