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On February 28, 2026, The United States launched a bombing campaign against Iran. Within hours, their Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, was dead (A). Just weeks earlier, the United States conducted a nearly identical operation in Venezuela, capturing the country’s President within minutes (B). For a moment, it looked as though Greenland would be invaded by America, too (C).

It seems Donald Trump is dead-set on going to war with, well, the whole world.

Except, Trump is not in control. America is caught in a process far bigger than him: a self-destructive paradox 30 years in the making that’s about to define the next chapter of global history.

The fate of the world will be decided in the next few years in the Middle East, Europe, and East Asia…and because Trump’s behavior is the product of a long historical cycle, we can already tell what’s going to happen.

You see, in the 1990s, when America won the Cold War, it set out to make the world safe for democracy—and for capitalism.

It encouraged free trade and expanded its alliances, both of which demanded an enormous, globe-spanning military. Yet this globalism fueled the rise of a new rival in China, undermined American industry, and suckered us into drawn-out conflicts on the far side the world. And now, America—undersupplied and over-committed—is forced to reckon with the reality of imperial decline. And now, America is lashing out as it retreats, attempting to project strength while betraying weakness that will invite competition and conflict.

Without America, the world will become much more violent, not because America is or was uniquely good. This is not a story of heroes and villains; it's a story of physics: the rules that define and predict global affairs, no matter who we're talking about. And we're about to see the first law in action, that power abhors a vacuum.

If we continue to act on our darkest impulses, motivated by fear, anxiety, and bitterness toward this changing world, we will plunge the globe into violence, war, and death.

Rhodes: I think there's no question that the world is getting more violent and more dangerous…We are back into a pre-World War world in which if you're strong, you can do what you want.

But there is another way.

Carney: Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. (F)

This is the story of how America doomed itself, what the world may look like tomorrow, and how we can build a better future.

Part I: What’s Next

Process

After World War II, America and the Soviet Union were the two countries left standing with the most factories and the biggest guns (D, 369). For 45 years, they stared each other down, as the world held its breath, fearing nuclear armageddon. And then one day it ended.

Ronald Reagan: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

And when the Soviet Union came crashing down, America stood alone as the world’s most powerful country.

It’s hard to express just how unusual this moment is in world history.

For millennia, the world has been full of countries and empires of comparable power. And in this environment, there's a lot of war and violence, because every other country is trying to get one over their neighbors, to secure themselves against their peers. It's anarchy. But when the Cold War ended, it wasn’t anarchy. America was there, ready to take control.

George H. W. Bush: A new world order, now within our reach.

Now, in society governments are supposed to replace anarchy and make us safer. So in global affairs, one super-powerful country, the idea goes, could replace anarchy with world peace. No peers, no competition, no reason for the big guy to rock the boat, no anarchy. A safe, stable world (E, 67-75). At least, that's the hope. And it…sort of worked.

Rhodes: It's not as if that system worked perfectly…But number one, you did not have World War III.

That’s Ben Rhodes, high-level advisor to President Obama, co-host of Pod Save the World, and regular New York Times contributor. And he sat down to help us through this. And there’s one more guy you need to hear from.

Carney: This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. (F)

That was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaking in Switzerland a few weeks ago to a room full of the most powerful people in the world.

Rhodes: Mark Carney is a guy that was Mr. Globalization. He was the head of the Bank of Canada, the head of the Bank of England.

And he’s calling the American world order a fiction.

Rhodes: For him to say that carried an important weight.

But why? He’s not saying it wasn’t without merit. Free trade made Canada and others rich (J). And America kept that trade safe (G), allowing other countries to wind down defense budgets and spend more on social welfare (H). But it’s a fiction because, if it’s too good to be true…it probably is.

For one, hardly everybody benefited from American hegemony. Global poverty has fallen, sure, but lots of places are about as poor as they used to be (I, 1). And America’s global military has done a lot more than just keep trade routes open. Just ask…well anyone in the middle east.

Imagery, sounds of the Iraq war

But more than that, American hegemony has revealed itself to be a fiction, because it's proven paradoxical and self-destructive.

Free trade meant encouraging poorer countries to take up manufacturing, causing the decline of industry in richer countries, including America. So, since 1990 American industry has almost completely collapsed (K). It’s just more efficient that way.

But securing global free trade demands a huge industrial commitment. Ships. Planes. Guns. All over the world. Securing trade routes and preventing regional conflicts from disrupting the world economy. So we stretched our industry farther. Can you see the suicidal death spiral? More and more industrial demands to secure less and less industrial capacity.

Rhodes: When it comes to the defense industrial base, the United States just has less manufacturing capacity, less of a capacity to produce the inputs for war.

Now, if someone were to provoke a conflict that drew us in to burn our supplies without an outright confrontation…that would be a problem.

Imagery, sounds of the Ukraine war.

…ah. Not good. Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, Europe, which since World War II wound down defense budgets and wound up social spending, has been caught utterly disarmed and flat-footed. In turn, America has expended enormous defense supplies in support of Ukraine (L). And thanks to its depleted industrial capacity, we're proving unable to keep pace with demand (M). In turn, reserves of missiles and other defense materiel are shrinking, and Americans are growing disenchanted with spending them to defend faraway Europe. Even worse, Trump has begun to demand those allies start handing over territory.

This is the self-destructive paradox that’s shaping the world right now. For thirty years America has worked itself into a corner and now, like a frightened cat, is lashing out—striking anyone it can to project strength and severing commitments to friends. America is not weak, not yet, but cracks are appearing in the foundation. In turn, much of the world, which counted on American protection are being left exposed or even betrayed. And the rest of the world, that was held in check by fear of American power, are being unshackled.

SPONSORED

This episode is sponsored by Ground News.

Ground brings together hundreds of news outlets into one website, allowing you to get full coverage of every story from every perspective. It's an incredibly useful tool for staying grounded in these divided times.

Ground also allows you to see information about the partisan bias, factuality ratings, and ownership background of every outlet, giving you a peek behind the curtain that helps contextualize the news we consume.

We love Ground, and we think you will too. We're excited to have them as a sponsor and be able to offer you an exclusive 40% discount off their top-tier Vantage plan, which includes all the features above, plus a personal blindspot feed. This feed shows you the news you're likely to miss, based on your own biases. Again, it's a great way to stay grounded.

We hope you'll check it out. Every signup supports our work.

Try Ground News

Smokeshow

So what happens next? Let's start with Iran. Trump never really gave us a clear explanation of what he wants out of this, whether it's regime change, the destruction of Iran's nuclear program, or the degradation of its missile capabilities.

Trump: Making Iran Great Again

But one thing it definitely is is an opportunity for America to reassert its dominance. Russia is pressing at the boundaries. China is eyeing Taiwan. Trump wants to wind down commitments while also deterring aggression. Iran should make an easy win. Except…if it's too good to be true...you know what I'm gonna say.

Trump’s own top general has been warning that the military doesn’t have sufficient supplies to guarantee a quick victory (N). Already, Iran has attacked nearby countries friendly to the US and has closed vital oil trade routes, sending barrel prices skyrocketing (O). Together, these could make the conflict far more costly than Trump expects.

But let's say America wins through sheer firepower, sometime in the next few weeks. That seems like the win Trump is after, but it's not so simple. Throughout the operation, shortages of key materiel become routine.

Rhodes: The United States is running uh very low on munitions, including on the air defense systems that we’re using to shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles.

In this scenario, what was supposed to be an easy win becomes an embarrassment, and countries that depend on American defense begin to worry that this friendship carries more baggage than it’s worth.

Rhodes: You're thinking, well, I don't know that I can rely on the United States anymore. They were supposed to guarantee our security and they just put it at risk by launching a war that didn't need to be fought. And those countries uh could turn elsewhere for their security.

Throughout 2026, then, American allies try to project confidence, announcing big defense spending packages and reaffirming their trust in American leadership. But some of them do something quieter.

Rhodes: How good is that security guarantee anymore if you're South Korea, for instance?

So, worried about the nuclear powers on its borders, South Korea begins spinning up nuclear weapons programs, hoping they'll be able to build a deterrent of their own (Q). The stakes are getting higher.

Acceleration

Trump senses this insecurity, that allies are growing cold. His effort to project strength to America's adversaries didn't go as planned, but Europe is easier to scare. So in mid-2027, Trump revives his demands for Greenland.

This time, he can’t be talked down by the Danish government or other European leaders. He's threatening force, and Europe can see he's in a corner after the Iran debacle. The calculation works; they don't want to risk it.

Denmark reluctantly agrees to sell the island to the US. On paper, everyone’s agreed, but the reality couldn’t be plainer. For decades, a military alliance had allowed European nations to lower defense spending and rely on American protection. But now, that alliance, known as NATO, is fractured. And on the other side of the continent, Vladimir Putin hasn’t missed any of this.

Rhodes: Absent the U.S. commitment to the collective defense of Europe via NATO, I think the risk of Vladimir Putin thinking, well, I can go beyond Ukraine now. I can potentially try to do in the Baltic states, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia—those are NATO member states—what I did in Ukraine, that suddenly becomes a more real possibility.

Even though NATO is fraying, though, Putin would still rather avoid an outright conflict. So he sets his sights on one country with a peculiar weakness. In Estonia a general election, which takes place largely online, is hacked, sowing distrust and confusion (R). Russian fighter jets start flying aggressively into Estonian airspace (S). An organized group of “Russian separatists” emerges, committing acts of terrorism in eastern Estonia. These are grayzone tactics—maneuvers meant to destabilize and justify escalation, without overt declarations of war (P).

And even though European leaders see this for what it is and trigger NATO’s mutual defense agreement, calling on aid from America, they’re out of luck. The US is still stretched thin, and the grayzone tactics give Trump plausible deniability. After all, there is no war. So he refuses to step in. NATO is over. Europe is on its own.

In response, France declares that it will extend its nuclear umbrella to the rest of the EU (T). NATO is gone, but something else is beginning to take its place. Meanwhile, South Korea begins producing small amounts of weapons-grade uranium, accelerating its quest for a nuclear deterring.

Things are getting more dangerous, not just in Europe, but all over the world.

Confrontation

It's now 2028 and Xi Jinping sees America retreating and shredding credibility.

Rhodes: If you're Xi Jinping, you're thinking, well, number one, it's going to be harder for the United States to mount an argument to the global community…after we've already seen the war in Ukraine, the war in Iran, the abduction of the leader of Venezuela…We're in a much weaker position to mobilize any kind of global response.

This could be a golden chance to deliver the Communist Party's top goal since 1949: the seizure of Taiwan and reunification of China (U). He starts moving the pieces into place.

Chinese fighters start flying into Taiwanese airspace (V). This isn’t new, but the frequency of the incursions is unprecedented. Naval strike groups begin moving into place around the island (W). Satellite images show missile batteries lining up along China’s coast. American naval radar detects thousands of unmanned subaquatic vessels regularly patrolling the Taiwan Strait.

Everything has led to this. American behavior has only grown more erratic, doomed by its own contradictions, revealing impotence against enemies and furor against friends. The result is a world in which predatory great powers may freely enact their will against their weaker neighbors. What happens next will decide the fate of millions, even billions. America has two options: escalate, or stand down.

Part II: Choices

War

Let’s first imagine a scenario where the US does decide to directly defend Taiwan using military force. There’s good reason to expect this could happen. East Asia is one of the most important centers of global trade.

Taiwan itself is home to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC, a crucial producer of the chips that go into all modern electronics and weapons systems. Losing it to China could be catastrophic (X).

So, America responds to China’s buildup with its own. But China doesn’t back down. Xi Jinping, judging that he needs to strike before American material gets between Chinese ships and the Taiwanese coast, gives the order. War has begun.

There are three distinct possible outcomes here, and all of them are some variety of bad. Lots of people will die.

The worst outcome by far is, of course, a spiraling conflict that draws regional actors into the conflict. Let’s say that Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea join on the American side, while Russia and North Korea back China. Other states try to stay out of the conflict, but are quickly drawn in. India and Pakistan, each seeking a final victory in their own long-running conflict, join on opposing sides. Six of the world’s nine nuclear powers are now party to the conflict.

This is World War 3. For a time, it settles into a stalemate, until Chinese intelligence informs North Korea of the South Korean nuclear program.

In late 2028, North Korea launches nuclear strikes against South Korea, killing millions. American retaliation triggers Chinese defensive systems, and before anyone knows it, billions are dead.

But it doesn’t have to turn out this way. Instead of a stalemate triggering desperate escalation, America’s degraded industrial capacity could simply prove its undoing. After all, American war games routinely predict a Chinese victory in this kind of conflict (Y). F-35s and aircraft carriers are blasted out of the sky and to the bottom of the sea by Chinese drones and ballistic missiles.

American guns and launchers utterly fail to keep pace with China’s capabilities. Donald Trump’s chosen successor loses the election to a Democrat who signs a humiliating peace agreement at a summit in Hawaii. Millions, billions of lives are spared, but the world will never be the same.

Over the next few years, Chinese power continues to grow. America—cut off from Asia—suffers devastating economic depression and political discord. By 2045, China is the world’s leading superpower.

There is one last possible outcome, though. American escalation could work, so to speak. Remember, in this scenario, Xi has calculated that America has no appetite for a conflict. But when American ships start concentrating near Taiwan, he determines that risking his regime’s legitimacy isn’t worth it. Instead of giving the go order, Xi backs down, commanding his generals to withdraw their forces.

This proves catastrophic for him. In response to his saber-rattling, the US establishes a permanent presence in Taiwan, building new military installations to protect the island. Dreams of reunification go out the window, and the CCP’s support erodes at home.

By 2031, China’s economy begins to stumble, as state planning grows corrupt, and the population begins declining rapidly, an artifact of the long-lived one-child policy. America wins the new cold war before it begins.

Peace

Most of those sounded pretty bad, so you're probably wondering, what happens if the United States backs down instead of escalating in the first place?

There are plenty of reasons to believe Trump might take this course. For one, he’s expressed appreciation for great powers having the liberty to act as they see fit in their spheres of influence. Moreover, he’s has even talked about a US-China “G-2,” a great power compact that would be unthinkable if the US doesn’t agree to allow the CCP to realize its dream of Taiwanese reunification (.

So when Xi moves in, Trump, with a low appetite for conflict, steps back. Taiwan has no recourse—it can either surrender and become a Chinese province or engage in a bloody fight that it will most likely lose. Either way, the conflict ends with a Chinese victory.

The age of American hegemony is officially over, and with it goes the peace and reliability it, at its best, provided. Instead of a hegemon, the world has a variety of comparable powers: the US, China, Russia. Great powers preying on their weaker neighbors with abandon.

This is dark—not the end of the world but the beginning of a much more violent one. But there is still hope here, a way to rein in violence without putting all our guns in one basket, without a single superpower.

In his speech in Switzerland, Mark Carney laid out a vision of a world in which middle powers could work together to keep the peace.

Carney: It's building coalitions that work – issues by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations…The middle powers must act together, because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu.

Since Russia's annexation of Estonia in 2027, Europe has already begun the process of rebuilding its conventional forces and expanding its nuclear arsenal under French leadership. Deeper military integration beyond Europe could follow. Carney’s own Canada might seek to join this new security bloc as well, fearing an assault by its belligerent neighbor to the south.

In Asia, too, a great many countries would be interested in alternative security arrangements: Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines. Such an alliance, stretching from Europe to North America to East Asia, armed with competent political institutions and nuclear weapons, could be a serious counterweight to rising, aggressive powers. This is Carney’s vision: a brighter potential future built from the "power of the powerless."

Rhodes: I actually think the hopeful thing about that scenario is if and when the United States kind of gets out of this current predicament with Trump, we could kind of rejoin the club, you know, and that could be the beginning of the next rules-based order.

But…how likely is this? A serious military buildup by these countries would take years. Spinning up new nuclear programs could take even longer. And the logistics would be a nightmare. Without a globe-spanning navy like America's, how would these countries deploy forces and missiles in each other's defense in a way that would make their alliance credible? But there is an even bigger challenge.

Rhodes: I will say that there's been all this focus on defense capabilities. But I do not think that the answer to global instability is for everybody to arm themselves to the teeth. um That tends to lead to dangerous places…I think the Europeans need to find ways to make collective decisions and to facilitate collective action. If they all had the same view on Ukraine, that would be more impactful, in my view, than if some of them were spending more money on defense…The political and security dimensions need to be coordinated to be effective.

Unless these middle powers act quickly to create the resilience that Carney called for, the more likely outcome if America stands down is an extended period of tension between the US and China: a new cold war. In turn, the Pacific would see extensive military buildup. The world would return to a state of 1960s-esque anxiety about nuclear apocalypse. Instead of building their own nonaligned alliance, the middle powers would be forced to choose sides, just as they did in the last cold war. Even if no shots are fired, leaders are constantly on edge, managing tensions. The powerless never manage to find their power.

Conclusion

All of this comes with a huge caveat. We can all see symptoms of American decline, but the death spiral is not unstoppable.

The US still possesses by far the most well-equipped and well-tested military in the world. China hasn’t fought a war in decades, and Russia is bleeding out as it enters the fourth year of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. America faces serious structural challenges—industrial, demographic, economic, and military—but smart policy and serious leadership could arrest the cycle.

If, however, America continues to decline, the result is very likely to be a big increase in violence, war, and death, all over the world. Not because America was uniquely virtuous, but because most governments are less violent than anarchy.

Even if the best version of Carney’s vision comes to pass, it will still be a world of middle powers actively seeking to constrain predatory great powers. It will be a world where nuclear weapons are much likelier to be built by small powers as a means of protecting their sovereignty, and thus more likely to be used, with all of the catastrophic consequences that entails. That is troubling, but it’s a far better future than World War III.

Carney: When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let's be clear eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable…We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just.

A. Alan Cowell and Farnaz Fassihi, “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Autocratic Cleric Who Made Iran a Regional Power, Is Dead at 86,” in the New York Time, 28 February 2026.

B. Julian E. Barnes, Tyler Pager, Eric Schmitt, “Inside ‘Operation Absolute Resolve,’ the U.S. Effort to Capture Maduro,” in the New York Times, 3 January 2026.

C. Chris Cameron, “Stephen Miller Asserts U.S. Has Right to Take Greenland,” in the New York Times, 5 January 2026.

D. Paul Kennedy, The Rise And Fall of Great Powers (Vintage Books, 1987).

E. Benjamin Cohen, International Political Economy: An Intellectual History (Princeton University Press, 2008).

F. Mark Carney, “Special address by Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada,” 20 January 2026.

G. US Department of Defense, “Freedom of Navigation (FON) Program,” 28 February 2017.

H. World Bank, “Military expenditure (% of GDP) - European Union.”

I. World Bank Group, “Pathways Out of the Polycrisis: Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024” (2024).

J. Government of Canada, “North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - Fast Facts,” 22 January 2018.

K. Kevin Bahr, “U.S. Manufacturing Employment: A Long-Term Perspective,” University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, 29 January 2025.

L. Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow, “Here’s How Much Aid the United States Has Sent Ukraine,” Council on Foreign Relations, 23 February 2026.

M. Alexandr Burilkov, Juan Mejino-López, and Guntram B. Wolff, “The US defence industrial base can no longer reliably supply Europe,” Bruegel, 18 December 2024.

N. Eric Schmitt, “Trump Says Top General Predicts Easy Victory Over Iran; He Says Otherwise in Private,” in the New York Times, 23 February 2026.

O. Callum Jones and Lauren Almeida, “Gas prices soar and oil jumps as Iran war pushes down global stock markets,” in The Guardian, 3 March 2026.

The following citations demonstrate the plausibility of the scenarios:

P. “Today’s wars are fought in the ‘gray zone.’ Here’s everything you need to know about it.” The Atlantic Council, 23 February 2022.

Q. Mark A. Green, “Seventy-One Percent of South Koreans Now Support the Return of Nuclear Weapons to Their Country—Even if it Means Developing Their Own,” in Stubborn Things, 31 January 2023.

R. Piret Ehin, Mihkel Solvak, Jan Willemson, and Priit Vinkel, “Internet voting in Estonia 2005–2019: Evidence from eleven elections,” in Government Information Quarterly 39 no. 4 (October 2022).

S. Andrius Sytas and Graham Slattery, “Russian jets enter Estonia's airspace in latest test for NATO,” in Reuters, 20 September 2025.

T. Mark Landler, “Macron Expands French Nuclear Arsenal and Vows Protection for Neighbors,” in The New York Times, 2 March 2026.

U. Jude Blanchette, Briana Boland and Lily McElwee, “What is Beijing’s Timeline for “Reunification” with Taiwan?” for CSIS Interpret: China, 26 May 2023.

V. Ronald Watkins, “Chinese Military Flights Near Taiwan Surge 15-Fold in Five Years: Report,” Defense Post, 2 February 2026.

W. Yimou Lee Joe Cash, and Liz Lee, “China encircles Taiwan in massive military display,” in Reuters, 30 December 2025.

X. Tripp Mickle, “The Looming Taiwan Chip Disaster That Silicon Valley Has Long Ignored,” in the New York Times, 24 February 2026.

Y. Sakshi Tiwari, “U.S.-China War: Leaked Pentagon Report Says USA Would Lose “Every Time” Without Major Reforms,” in The Eurasian Times, 11 December 2025.

Z. Janis Mackey Frayer and Eric Baculinao, “The U.S. and China running the world together? China says no thanks,” NBC, 7 March 2026.