By Todd Davis
Momentum is one of the most decisive forces in politics. Movements build by degrees until eventually they become irresistible forces that sweep away old institutions, unable to deal with a surging popular sentiment. Revolutions, hard and soft, can’t be contained.
BRICS had aspirations to do that. Create a bloc in opposition to the Petrodollar. Focus on nations rich in resources rather than the current Western-dominated paradigm, focused on GDPs largely supported by service and finance-driven economies.
On paper, this was a strong plan. Create a new multipolar world that wasn’t dependent on the United States and subject to its, and the EU capricious sanctions diplomacy. Seize the means of payment, and everything else will fall into place. America retreats, defeated not on the battlefield, but through the ballot box and stock market. Defang the dollar, and you cripple the American behemoth.
But what happens if the American Goliath decides it wants to fight back?
Fate is Fickle
Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. They aren’t an axis of evil; they are nations trying to survive in a world that largely functions as a subsidiary of the American Empire. Understandably, they wanted to push back. None of them have Barrack Obama’s charisma, however. All of them are saddled with decades of bad PR because, well, they’ve been doing bad things for decades.
However, the hope was to convince enough middle powers, the Brazils, Venezuela, and Indonesias, of the world that Multipolarity was the goal, not the replacement of America. BRICS members South Africa and India remained dubious, hedging their bets by trying to exist in both worlds. Had the conflict been allowed to play out over decades, they would have eventually been forced to pick a side. America saved them from that choice by deciding to act. Check that, President Donald Trump decided to act.
Fate is fickle and yet seems to control all. Had Joe Biden not looked like a boiled potato in his debate with Trump, or had the Democrats run a primary to replace him rather than selecting Kamala Harris, who virtually no one wanted, as the opposition, things might have been different. Neither Biden nor Harris was going to upset the world order that was trending toward multipolarity and against American interests. They would have ridden out the four years, watched BRICS grow in power, shrugged their shoulders, and said what can we do?
Instead, Trump won. And nothing has been, or ever will be, the same.
The Great Destroyer
Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin has taken to calling Donald Trump The Great Destroyer. When Alexander Dugin describes Donald Trump as the Great Destroyer, he is not speaking in the language of policy but of historical function. In Dugin’s framework, the liberal international order must be dismantled before a true multipolar system can emerge. Trump, in this sense, is cast as a disruptive force. One who strips away diplomatic norms, weakens alliances, and exposes the coercive foundations of American power. Dugin writes that Trump has “destroyed the previous order to its very foundations” and “torn away every veil,” revealing the underlying structure of Western dominance.
Yet this framing also reveals the contradiction now playing out in Iran. The same figure Dugin once saw as opening the door to multipolarity has instead demonstrated the opposite: that the United States retains both the will and capacity to enforce a unipolar outcome when core interests are challenged. Rather than enabling a balanced system of civilizational spheres, American action against Iran signals that emerging poles will not be allowed to consolidate power independently. In this light, the “Great Destroyer” is not clearing the ground for a multipolar world, but exposing its limits by showing that attempts to break the existing order may instead trigger its violent reassertion.
Blood and Iron
Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck argued in his September 30th, 1862 speech to the Budget Committee of the Prussian House of Deputies, that German unification would not be achieved through speeches and majority decisions founded in liberalism, but through military force and industrial power.
The position of Prussia in Germany will not be determined by its liberalism but by its power… Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided – that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 – but by iron and blood.
For decades, American hard power was artificially restrained by liberal institutions at home and abroad. Multiple presidents entered into alliances and trade agreements that were fundamentally detrimental to the interests of the American populace while providing massive benefits, havens, and avenues of advancement to the multipolar world.
A Clinton-Bush-Obama-Biden successor would have allowed this multipolarity to flourish. Trump is not those men. His thinking, although not always his execution, is Alexandrian, decisive, grand, a belief that nothing is impossible for those who dare. He sees a problem that doesn’t benefit America and looks to eliminate it or force it to bend to his will until it does benefit the country.
In light of this, it should come as no surprise that the Gulf State monarchies are more supportive and reliable allies than the neoliberal administrations entrenched in Europe.
Like Bismarck, Trump doesn’t believe America’s problems will be resolved in Senate debates or adjudicated by policy wonks. He runs the country and foreign policy by executive, some would say imperial, decree. He wants to increase the Defense Budget by half a trillion dollars. You don’t do that unless you plan on using the military, like Bismarck, as an extension of state policy.
The Fragility of NATO
Who will follow Trump on this crusade to break the multipolar world? NATO, the preeminent alliance of the modern age, has come under increasing duress under the Trump Administration. Once an economic issue, where European countries were not paying their treaty-stipulated defense obligations, Trump’s critique of the alliance has expanded into the realm of social policy, touching on everything from immigration to freedom of speech.
The alliance was put to a test earlier this year over Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland. And while a compromise was tentatively established, for now, the American president’s concerns turned out to be justified as NATO allies, such as Spain, refused to allow the USA to use their bases for attacks on Iran. What if Denmark developed similar reservations concerning bases in Greenland for another operation it decided it didn’t want to support? American strategic aims cannot be subservient to the whims of its much weaker alliance partners.
After Britain and Germany decided they were not going to assist President Trump in opening the Straits of Hormuz, the alliance will come under even further scrutiny from the Americans. What is the purpose of having allies if they no longer share your values and strategic aims? America, in the past, needed allies not only to assist in its geopolitical goals but also to give the veneer of moral right to its actions. President Trump has dispensed with the procedural charade of international law and acts in a more Homeric tradition, power first, justification later. In this environment, European sign-off is no longer required.
Iran the Laboratory
Based on what we’ve seen in Iran, the United States might not need a large collection of ceremonial allies. Instead, it could achieve its aims with a small group of dedicated ones. Israel, Greece, Ukraine, Japan. These countries have shown a willingness and capability to act.
A multipolar world was always going to require the United States to either accept the transition from unipolar hegemony or would entail a retreat by the world’s one true military superpower. In Trump, the proponents of multipolarity found the opposite. Trump decided to attack.
Utilizing a small, highly capable coalition, the United States is systemically destroying the leadership, navy, military, and governing apparatus of the state in Iran. And there is very little Iran can do about it. Keep in mind, this is a regime that has been hostile to America for 47 years and has been preparing and wargaming for this war for at least three decades. With all that preparation, Iran has not been able to hit a single American target of significance. If Iran can fail this badly in a confrontation with the United States, what chance do other nations, far less prepared, have?
The hard truth is that the United States retains the ability to project overwhelming naval and air power against most nations on earth, often with limited risk of decisive retaliation. Reports of American military demise have turned out to be wishful thinking or outright propaganda. An entire generation has discovered that they will almost certainly live their whole lives under the shadow of the American Empire.
Whether or not some semblance of a regime survives in Iran is no longer the point. Iran, in its former role as belligerent in chief and beacon of hope for a multipolar world, is gone. It’s not coming back. Not for decades. What was shattered in Iran extends far beyond the Islamic regime. What was broken is the belief that multipolarity will ever supplant American interests. So long as it retains the will to enforce them. Multipolarity did not fail in theory; it failed when confronted by force.
