The Free World Is in Flux

By Abe Greenwald

Friday, March 21, 2025

 

My friend James Kirchick has a characteristically sharp essay in Politico arguing that Donald Trump has destroyed for all time “what used to be called the ‘Free World.’” I’m with Kirchick on virtually all his criticism of the Trump administration’s Russia-Ukraine antics in late February: from his condemnation of JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference to the disgrace that was the Oval Office upbraiding of Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Trump’s disturbing actions on Russia, Ukraine, and NATO more generally. But I’m not quite with him on his thesis: “What transpired during the last two weeks of February cannot be undone in the minds of America’s allies or its adversaries.”

 

With all respect to Jamie, that’s a premature assessment. I’m not even sure that the events of late February can’t be undone in Trump’s mind—by late March. Remember that he denounced Zelenskyy as a dictator only to say he didn’t recall doing so days afterward. And then U.S.-Ukraine negotiations resumed on a more genteel, if still misguided, path. After that, Trump was musing publicly about ramping up sanctions on Russian energy.

 

Trump can turn on, or side with, anyone at any time. He launches, aborts, and restarts policies at whim. It’s risky to speculate about the end of global orders and alliances no matter who’s in power. History has a bottomless capacity to surprise. But when Trump is in office, every prediction becomes little more than a roll of the dice. I know because I once wrote a piece arguing that Trump might usher in the end of the Free World—during Trump’s first term.

 

What’s striking (and humbling) is that in “Is This the End of the ‘Free World’?” from the June 2017 issue of Commentary, I criticized Trump for starting unnecessary fights with our democratic allies, yet I barely remember these confrontations today: Trump told off the Australian prime minister over a refugee deal, pounced on Canada for “what they did to our workers and to our farmers,” and threatened to pull out of trade and defense pacts with South Korea. I’ll just have to take my own word for it.

 

The point is, what I feared was the beginning of the end for the Free World proved, in time, unmemorable. I concluded, in part:

 

People may continue to vote for their own freedom. But if voting publics no longer consider democratic ties [among allies] to be a priority, those ties will wither. American influence will wane. Strongmen will prey on the weak with no consequence.

 

And yet, it was during the term of Trump’s successor Joe Biden that Vladimir Putin resumed his annexation of Ukraine. It was during Biden’s term that the U.S. abandoned those Afghans for whom the support of the Free World meant the difference between life and death. And it was under Biden that the U.S. weakened sanctions on, and filled the coffers of, the enemies of freedom in Tehran.

 

During his first term, Trump had praised Putin but effectively deterred him. Trump talked about leaving Afghanistan but never did it. He applied a campaign of maximum pressure on Iran and took out the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force.

 

All of which is to say, world affairs don’t unfold in a predictably straight line. 

 

Look, there’s no pretending this time isn’t different. And just because I was wrong in 2017, there’s no reason Kirchick couldn’t be right today. Now, unlike then, there aren’t any establishment Republicans around Trump to rein in his worst instincts. And now, unlike then, Trump has openly sided with Russia against Ukraine. So I share every last one of Kirchick’s fears.

 

But what hasn’t changed is that Trump’s thinking and actions are characterized foremost by inconstancy. This creates its own problems, but it also makes even short-term predictions impossible. 

 

Our allies and enemies know this, too. There’s no foreign leader who doesn’t understand that Trump is a sui generis figure. And they take American administrations as they come. The bonds of the Free World will stretch thin as Trump plays out his schemes, but whether they break is still a mystery to all, including, I’m sure, the president of the United States.