Everyone else might be talking about who's going to be the next UK Prime Minister, but to me, what was important was what the Italian Prime Minister said to Donald Trump and what Donald Trump said to the Indian Prime Minister this past week.
The Italian Prime Minister basically called Donald Trump untrustworthy after he claimed she was begging him for photos. All the while, Donald Trump is being accused on social media of begging the Iranians for peace. Donald Trump sat down with the Indian Prime Minister and said, "Were India to be attacked, America would come to her aid." I've never seen Narendra Modi more unmoved or unbothered by what, for any other American President, would have been a big statement.
International orders do not rest primarily upon military power. They rest upon credibility. A powerful state can compel behaviour for a time, but a trusted state can shape behaviour without compulsion. Since 1945, the United States has occupied a unique position in world affairs not merely because it possessed unmatched military and economic strength, but because allies, partners and markets broadly believed its commitments would endure across administrations and crises.
Today, that assumption is increasingly questioned. From Afghanistan to trade policy, from alliance commitments to shifting positions on conflicts around the world, the perception has emerged that American policy has become more transactional, less predictable, and more dependent upon the personality of whoever occupies the White House. The question is therefore not whether America remains powerful. It clearly does. The more important question is what happens to the international order if even America's friends no longer fully trust its promises.
This essay argues that declining confidence in American commitments accelerates the transition from a rules-based international system towards a more transactional and multipolar order. In such a world, states increasingly rely on self-help, strategic autonomy, and hedging behaviour rather than alliance guarantees.
International relations ultimately operate on expectations. Credibility therefore functioned as a force multiplier. Trust amplified power. When trust weakens, however, the opposite occurs.
The clearest response to declining confidence is the rise of strategic autonomy. India offers perhaps the most obvious example. Despite expanding cooperation with Washington through the Quad and increasing economic ties with the West, India continues to avoid formal alliance commitments. Successive Indian governments have concluded that partnerships are valuable but dependence is dangerous. How right they were and proven by Donald Trump.
The logic is straightforward. If commitments may change with elections, then national security must ultimately rest on national capabilities. Europe is beginning to confront a similar dilemma. Calls for greater European defence capacity reflect not hostility towards America but uncertainty about whether future American administrations will remain equally committed to European security. Maloni refused to bend the knee, and for that she got the ire of Donald Trump. Keir Starmer bent the knee, and for that his weakness was exposed, and his character flaws too as Prime Minister - which contributed to his downfall, perceived as weak.
A decline in confidence in American commitments also accelerates multipolarity. When the dominant power is perceived as less predictable, other states gain incentives to diversify relationships. They strengthen ties with multiple partners simultaneously, balancing rather than aligning.
This behaviour is already visible across the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Countries increasingly engage with the United States, China, India, Europe and regional powers simultaneously. The result is not necessarily anti-Americanism. It is strategic insurance. In effect, uncertainty about American commitments encourages states to spread risk. Other American Presidents understood this subtlety and nuance, but this President is not for subtlety or nuance.
This may produce a world that is more independent, but it may also become more fragmented. The most important asset of a great power is not military capability, economic scale or technological superiority. It is credibility. The emerging world is therefore not necessarily post-American. It is post-certainty.