Also from “News Items” from @EllisItems (https://substack.news-items.com):

“8. Mark Leonard:

It is time to acknowledge that the old order really has disappeared—and to plot a new approach to geopolitics. This moment does not constitute a short interregnum between a U.S.-led order and a Chinese-led one. For some time, the world will be without any order at all—swept by fragmentation, contagion, and strangulation or the temptation to weaponize a wide variety of geographic, economic, and technological chokepoints. Rather than constructing a grand strategy, states will need to develop far more flexible and artisanal responses.

In dozens of private conversations I have had over the past year with leaders worldwide, the only thing they agree on is that they do not know what will come next. They are struggling to use history or theory to find their bearings. The briefings they get from their intelligence agencies and diplomatic services no longer give them any certainty. Ahead of every NATO summit, I receive text messages from European leaders asking me what I think might happen. One Gulf leader recently admitted to me that he simply had no idea what arrangement would settle the dispute over the Strait of Hormuz. The national security adviser of a U.S. ally in the Indo-Pacific said his government no longer knew whether the United States would defend his country in a crisis.

The central feature of these conversations is uncertainty, a sense that the world defies conventions and understanding. Episodes of rule breaking always characterized the rules-based order, but they took place within an overall framework that still held. This is the distinction: in a disordered world, actors violate rules they still recognize. In a world defined by what might be called “un-order,” they act without reference to any common framework at all. (Sources: http://ecfr.eu, http://foreignaffairs.com)”

Also from “News Items” from @EllisItems (https://substack.news-items.com):

“8. Mark Leonard:

It is time to acknowledge that the old order really has disappeared—and to plot a new approach to geopolitics. This moment does not constitute a short interregnum between a U.S.-led order and a Chinese-led one. For some time, the world will be without any order at all—swept by fragmentation, contagion, and strangulation or the temptation to weaponize a wide variety of geographic, economic, and technological chokepoints. Rather than constructing a grand strategy, states will need to develop far more flexible and artisanal responses.

In dozens of private conversations I have had over the past year with leaders worldwide, the only thing they agree on is that they do not know what will come next. They are struggling to use history or theory to find their bearings. The briefings they get from their intelligence agencies and diplomatic services no longer give them any certainty. Ahead of every NATO summit, I receive text messages from European leaders asking me what I think might happen. One Gulf leader recently admitted to me that he simply had no idea what arrangement would settle the dispute over the Strait of Hormuz. The national security adviser of a U.S. ally in the Indo-Pacific said his government no longer knew whether the United States would defend his country in a crisis.

The central feature of these conversations is uncertainty, a sense that the world defies conventions and understanding. Episodes of rule breaking always characterized the rules-based order, but they took place within an overall framework that still held. This is the distinction: in a disordered world, actors violate rules they still recognize. In a world defined by what might be called “un-order,” they act without reference to any common framework at all. (Sources: http://ecfr.eu, http://foreignaffairs.com)”

Source:https://twitter.com/hughhewitt/status/2090410104927420552