The world has been given a glimpse of a future without Washington’s leadership, and it came from the SCO summit in China. The debut of a new power bloc, centered around the leaders of India, China, and Russia, has sent a clear message that a significant part of the world is ready to move on from American-led global governance.
This development was met with alarm in the US, where commentator Van Jones called it a “historically big deal.” The image of Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin united in purpose, he warned, is the visual representation of a “new world order” that is explicitly designed to function without—and potentially against—the United States.
This coalition has been galvanized by the US administration’s “America First” agenda and its associated trade tariffs. As the US withdraws from its traditional leadership role, it is creating a vacuum that these Eastern powers are eagerly filling. Their summit was a declaration of this new multipolar reality.
Jones argued that this leaves the US strategically isolated and “in a box.” He lamented the reversal of the Cold War-era dynamic, stating that the US is now on the “bad side of the triangle.” The sobering conclusion is that America now faces a world where “it’s everybody against us.”
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