America vs the West: A Lowy Institute Paper: Penguin Special

'The rules-based international order is being challenged … not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor, the US.' European Council President Donald Tusk, 8 June 2018

Under President Donald Trump, the United States has burned like a wildfire through the goodwill it accrued in seventy years of propagating its liberal political values. Can Western nations preserve the liberal world order against rising authoritarian powers without the United States, or with Washington working against them?

In America vs the West, Kori Schake argues that the success of the liberal order is not preordained. It will have to be fought for, compromised for, and rejuvenated. Can it be done without American leadership? That will depend on the strengths of the major challengers – Russia and China – but above all on whether the West’s middle powers are prepared to band together.