The rules-based global order, its institutions and value system face a crisis of legitimacy and credibility as the US turns away

‘The old world is dying,” Antonio Gramsci once wrote. “And the new world struggles to be born.” In such interregnums, the Italian Marxist philosopher suggested, “every act, even the smallest, may acquire decisive weight”.

In 2025, western leaders appeared convinced they – and we – were living through one such transitional period, as the world of international relations established after the second world war crashed to a halt.

During such eras, Gramsci more famously wrote, “morbid phenomena of the most varied kind come to pass”. And at present there is no more morbid phenomenon than the crisis of legitimacy for the networks of rules and laws on which the international order was based – the world that the US was central in creating in 1945.

No one can say they were not warned about the wrecking ball that was about to be inflicted on the global order by Donald Trump.