The Unconstrained Presidency Dismantles Decades of American Primacy and Stability
Donald Trump’s return to the White House accelerates a transition from the rules-based system toward international anarchy. In Foreign Affairs, Drezner and Saunders argue that the administration has embraced the demise of traditional global norms. This shift represents a move toward a primitive, Hobbesian “war of all against all” defined by raw power. By rejecting domestic and international constraints, Trump reshapes the world into a space governed by the impulses of the strongest actor. While order may eventually re-emerge, the authors contend it will likely not be led by the United States.
Systematic Dismantling of US Advantages
The administration has spent its first year gutting the institutional foundations that once secured American hegemony and global influence. Drezner and Saunders report that Trump has picked “unnecessary and increasingly dangerous fights” with stalwart European allies while showing little interest in critical conflicts like Russia’s war in Ukraine. Instead of a strategic focus on peer competitors like China, the military has been redirected toward the Caribbean and Mediterranean in response to transient protests and territorial interests in Greenland. These actions suggest a revisionist power that is intentionally injecting aggression into the global system. By undermining NATO and the diplomatic apparatus, the administration is surrendering advantages that were essential for long-term competition.
The Rise of Domestic Personalism
The erosion of constraints is not limited to foreign policy, as the administration has moved to centralize authority and bypass domestic democratic bulwarks. In Foreign Affairs, Saunders highlights that the United States now exhibits the “foreign policy of a personalist dictatorship,” in which executive power is near-absolute. Trump has declared ten states of emergency in a single year to bypass Congress on issues ranging from immigration to the International Criminal Court. Furthermore, the dismissal of top military lawyers by War Secretary Pete Hegseth signals a blatant disregard for the legal limitations of warfighting. This domestic consolidation mirrors the anarchy unleashed abroad, leaving citizens and institutions to struggle against an unconstrained sovereign.
Weakening the Professional Bureaucracy
A key pillar of American stability, the professional civil service, has been systematically hollowed out to ensure absolute presidential control. The administration’s aggressive use of Schedule F reclassifications has replaced nonpartisan experts with loyalists whose primary qualification is ideological alignment. Drezner notes that this “de-professionalization” of the State Department and intelligence agencies reduces the quality of information reaching the Oval Office. Without a functional bureaucracy to provide friction or specialized expertise, the president is free to act on whim rather than strategy. This internal rot ensures that American foreign policy becomes as volatile as the leader’s social media feed. The result is a hollowed-out state apparatus that no longer possesses the capacity to manage complex global crises.
The Destruction of Economic Leverage
The administration's trade policy has shifted from strategic competition to a blunt instrument of “transactional extortion” that alienates even the closest economic partners. Trump has utilized broad tariff authority to target allied industries, treating trade as a zero-sum battleground rather than a mutually beneficial system. Drezner and Saunders argue that this weaponization of the American market incentivizes other nations to build alternative financial infrastructures. By threatening to tax BRICS nations 100 percent for moving away from the dollar, the White House is paradoxically accelerating global de-dollarization. As the United States retreats into protectionism, it loses the ability to set the rules for the twenty-first-century global economy. Partners who once relied on American consumers are now seeking more stable, predictable markets in the European Union and Asia.
The Cost of Abandoning Credibility
The current trajectory of “flexible realism” risks a permanent decline in American power as allies seek security elsewhere to hedge against US volatility. According to Drezner and Saunders, the gutting of foreign aid and scientific research funding weakens the technological dominance the administration claims to protect. As the United States weaponizes the "Department of Justice" and deploys federal troops against its own cities, it loses the moral and legal standing required to lead. Smaller powers are already finding China more attractive as the White House's zero-sum logic alienates traditional partners. Ultimately, the destruction of the rule of law at home and the abandonment of credible commitments abroad ensure that the United States will pay the highest price for this new era of instability.
The endurance of American influence now depends on whether domestic pushback from the judiciary and the public can successfully restore the institutional checks that defined the republic.
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