This article was originally published in Vol. 5 No. 2 of our print edition.
As America steps back from European security, can Europe stand alone? The Liberal International Order (LIO) was built on US security guarantees and EU bureaucracy. In an era of growing multipolarity and democratic discontent with liberal hegemony, and with America under Trump, European politics is changing. Its legacy institutions and ways of doing things will also have to change. In this piece, I outline sovereign internationalism (SI). SI is still emergent and is not a set theory or paradigm, but what I argue for is a via media between globalist overreach and autarkic withdrawal in the context of the LIO’s transformation. I argue SI offers a remedy that can address the crises that bedevil European politics: a framework that restores national sovereignty, ensures voluntary cooperation, and heals Europe’s legitimacy crisis at a time when America is increasingly absent.1 If the 1990s were the high point of globalization and the 2010s marked the first wave of its unravelling, the coming decades will determine whether the world descends into fragmentation or finds a new balance between national sovereignty and global cooperation.2
The Rise of the Liberal International Order
Europe’s post-war economic and security order was anchored by US hegemony and its NATO security and economic integration via the Bretton Woods system. The postwar architects of European order—chiefly American, with European acquiescence—saw liberal democracy and supranational institutions as bulwarks, not only against the threat of communism but also against the nationalism that twice ravaged the continent in the twentieth century. NATO’s US nuclear umbrella allowed Western Europe to divert resources to welfare states, while the European Economic Community (the predecessor to the EU) pooled sovereignty for mutual prosperity. By the 1990s, the EU’s expansion and the Maastricht Treaty cemented a supranational vision, promising peace through interdependence.3
Yet this order rested on two fragile pillars rooted in US hegemony. The first was America’s willingness and capacity to underwrite European defence and solve the continent’s collective action problems. The second assumption was that the post-Cold War unipolar moment would last, and thus, the US could sustain its European superintendence indefinitely. NATO’s stability masked Europe’s military underinvestment, while the EU’s bureaucratic sprawl—from trade rules to judicial oversight—eroded the authority of national parliaments, acting as a brake on prosperity.
What helped end the unipolar moment and thus trigger today’s crises in European politics? A closer look reveals four interwoven currents, which we will consider. The first is the emergence of structural multipolarity. At the height of the Cold War, the world was essentially bipolar, with the United States and the Soviet Union competing for global influence. After 1991, Washington briefly enjoyed near-unrivalled supremacy, but China’s rise and Russia’s resurgence shattered this unipolar moment. China’s spectacular economic growth made it the world’s manufacturing powerhouse and enabled significant military modernization, ultimately challenging American dominance in key regions such as the South China Sea.4 Russia recovered sufficiently from the post-Soviet collapse to attempt to reassert its sphere of influence, most obviously in Ukraine. That war has raised the cost of US security guarantees, leading to a grand strategic reappraisal.
‘This crisis is an opportunity to rethink the nature of European politics’
Other middle powers, from Türkiye to Iran, have also taken advantage of this structural opening and refused to remain passive in a system once defined by unquestioned American leadership. By 2024–2025, it had become clear that no single state or ideological bloc could easily dictate the global agenda.5 Indeed, under the Trump administration, this structural reality has been acknowledged, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio observing that ‘it’s not normal for the world to have a unipolar power’. He stated that ‘eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multiple great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China and, to some extent Russia.’6 Commenting on developments in Washington, DC, as Trump’s second term began, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan observed that ‘those who think about foreign affairs and world history, the great story of the past dozen years or so has been the collapse of the post-war international order that created systems and ways of operating whose dynamics and assumptions were clear, predictable, and kept an enduring peace. You can say the fall began when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 or Ukraine in 2022. Take your pick, it’s over.’7
A second factor is the collapse of the dream of painless globalization. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Western governments championed the view that open borders and free trade would produce universal prosperity at minimal social cost. Yet the offshoring of manufacturing to lower-wage economies, especially China, hollowed out industrial heartlands in Europe and North America, fuelling dislocation and resentment. While urban hubs often thrived on the growth of financial services and tech industries, many smaller cities and towns sank into economic malaise. The financial crisis of 2008 underscored the fragility of a system premised on deregulated markets, triggering bailouts for banks and austerity measures for ordinary citizens.8 This discrepancy between elite promises of global prosperity and the experience of deindustrialization in working- and middle-class communities amplified suspicions about the alleged seamlessness of the liberal order and globalization.
A third development was the intensifying backlash against supranational treaties and transnational courts, symbolizing growing regulatory sprawl. European voters, in particular, viewed policies on migration quotas, environmental regulations, and human rights as being adjudicated by distant institutions in Brussels or Strasbourg. On a global scale, the WTO’s dispute-settlement system and various UN conventions were similarly perceived as curtailing national legislative autonomy. While proponents argued that these frameworks promoted peace and stability, critics insisted that they undermined legitimate democratic processes. The Brexit referendum and the broader popularity of ‘taking back control’ illustrated how even long-standing democracies such as the UK could rebel against rules above and beyond their national parliaments.9 These sentiments spilled over into transatlantic relations, too, with Americans growing wary of international agreements they perceived as interfering with domestic prerogatives—sentiments that Donald Trump harnessed upon returning to the White House and endorsing Elon Musk’s DOGE drive to increase transparency and move America from a self-interested bureaucracy back to a self-governing democracy.
‘[Sovereign internationalism] offers a remedy: a continent where nations govern democratically, cooperate voluntarily, and secure themselves without external crutches, by grounding solidarity in national consent’
A final blow to the LIO came with the Biden administration’s embrace of progressive moral universalism in its latter half, extending beyond democracy promotion to a sweeping social justice agenda. Building on post-Cold War liberal triumphalism, US foreign policy pushed LGBTQ+ rights, climate justice, and race-and-gender frameworks.
Supporters saw this as a moral evolution, extending civil rights victories abroad. Critics, however, decried it as cultural imperialism, clashing with traditional and even liberal societies, with its form of progressive illiberalism, ‘cancel culture’, and attempts to subvert scientific realities to fashionable ideas on the infinite malleability of gender identity. This agenda, often backed by multinational capitalism and multimillion-dollar funded NGOs, prioritized open borders and rapidly evolving ideals that undermined the social cohesion and values of diverse societies.10 For example, USAID’s role in promoting a specific intersectional or Woke ideological agenda is starkly evident in Europe, where it has leveraged its financial influence to advance hyper-progressive policies.11 Regardless of whether we support or object to these ideologies and values, it is undeniable that they amount to a deliberate attempt by the American state to influence national politics and shape cultural narratives. It is a form of corporate and state-backed influence operation designed to push societies in a specific ideological direction and to collectively punish states that resist this cultural imperialism.
Compounding these trends was the fact that a new elite class of international specialists, professionals, lawyers, and career diplomats acquired ever-growing influence by steering or interpreting complex protocols or promoting the ideology of this global regime. While adept at speaking the language of transnational governance, this class of technocrats often lacked on-the-ground legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary citizens. Detractors accused them of elitism, arguing that they are a well-remunerated diplomatic echo chamber that effectively makes decisions for entire nations without meaningful democratic input, and seeks to influence the politics of democratic European nations by promoting one-step removed
forms of governance that voters can never fully influence or control through their national elections. What was executed in the name of inclusivity, diversity, and equity was a global influence operation pushing progressive illiberal ideology and forms of American cultural colonization.12
For a time, American power and engagement helped maintain this system. The US shouldered the role of collective defence provider, especially within NATO, and ensured the smooth operation of global finance with the dollar as a linchpin of international trade. Free from large-scale defence spending, European allies grew adept at rhetorical displays of liberal idealism, even castigating the US in some instances, whilst, behind the scenes, these same elites enjoyed the hegemonic role of the US in solving their collective action problems.13 This comfortable arrangement, however, came at a price. National industries were often offshored to cheaper markets, particularly in China, with footloose capital moving across national boundaries, sometimes with devastating consequences. Without robust integration policies, immigration soared and unsettled local cultures. Judiciary-driven ‘human rights’ expansions overturned longstanding national traditions, fuelling resentment against distant courts. By the mid-2010s, this frustration reached a boiling point in the electoral triumphs of Brexit, the surge of nationalist parties in Europe, and Donald Trump’s initial victory in 2016 and then again in 2024.
Sovereign Internationalism
Based on the sketch above, I want to outline sovereign internationalism (SI). This emergent trend, most evident in Hungary’s politics, responds to the perceived failures and deficits of the LIO in the current global landscape, particularly following Trump’s victory.14 Unlike the LIO, which relies on supranational mandates often crafted by unelected technocrats, SI insists that international cooperation must stem from national consent, with policies reflecting the democratic will of citizens. This approach restores legitimacy by requiring that any shared policy—whether on trade, migration, or environmental standards—be ratified by national parliaments or, where appropriate, through referendums. Such a mechanism empowers citizens to hold their leaders accountable, countering the EU’s top-down, regulatory sprawl.
For instance, in trade negotiations, SI would dismantle the EU’s practice of negotiating on behalf of all member states without sufficient national input. Instead, countries could negotiate trade agreements or retain veto power over EU-wide deals that affect their economies. This would prevent repeats of the contentious Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations, where national concerns about regulatory sovereignty were sidelined, fuelling public discontent.15 Similarly, SI would allow nations to opt out of policies misaligned with their interests, such as Hungary’s rejection of EU migration quotas, thereby reducing the resentment caused by the one-size-fits-all approach of Brussels. This also respects the differential approaches to migration rooted in national histories.
As exemplified by Hungary, the historical trajectory of Eastern Europe has been profoundly different to that of Western Europe, shaped by the Ottoman Empire’s expansion and revealing a tapestry of diverse experiences across the continent. Hungary faced the sharp end of Ottoman colonization after the 1526 Battle of Mohács, enduring over 150 years of occupation in its core territories. This fate made it a buffer state against eastern empires—a role largely unfamiliar to Western nations like Germany, which consolidated power under the Holy Roman Empire and later modern statehood without such prolonged subjugation.16 This divergence in historical encounters with external domination left Eastern Europe with a legacy of vigilance over sovereignty. Western Europe, now insulated by geography, developed a different lens on identity and integration. When the EU, driven by Germany’s leadership, mandated migrant quotas in 2015 to distribute Syrian refugees—with Germany absorbing over one million while Hungary accepted fewer than a thousand—Hungary’s resistance reflected the fact that imposing uniform policies ignores the sensitive, distinct experiences of Eastern European nations, whose scars from Ottoman rule amplify their reluctance to accept external directives.
These historical precedents also support the viability of SI. For example, from 1815 to 1914, the Concert of Europe, through summits like Vienna, largely maintained peace between Britain, Russia, and Austria, without a central ruler, providing a blueprint for an SI confederation. Major powers met periodically to resolve conflicts and maintain stability, with each retaining full autonomy.17 A modern SI framework could transform the EU into a flexible confederation, serving as a forum for dialogue and voluntary coordination rather than a legislative overlord. This would enable member states to collaborate on shared challenges, like climate change or defence, while preserving their sovereignty, aligning governance with democratic accountability and national identity.
Furthermore, SI addresses concerns about the imposition of progressive moral universalism. As we saw above, this was a strong feature of recent US foreign policy, and is also inherent in the symbolic order promoted by the EU. This point is especially salient. The Second World War and the defeat of Hitler’s genocidal regime remain some of the most potent normative organizing principles, and the post-national moral order was adopted and promoted as part of the open society’s broader liberal internationalism. There is nothing wrong with opposing the evil of racism, and the goal of countering violent nationalism is entirely honourable, given the horrors of the world wars. Still, in its mission, this new post-war, postnational moral order sought to throw the ‘baby out with the bath water’ and destroy foundational civilizational norms such as patriotism, a sense of boundedness, and national cultural affinity.18 These ideas were seen as potentially one step removed from an always-lurking fascism. Those who refuse to kneel before this liberal internationalist zeitgeist have been branded as evil racists, with border security to manage historically unprecedented flows of mainly economic migrants cited as evidence of fascism. As outlined above, given the differing experiences of diverse European nations, this imposed historical narrative is especially egregious in the case of Eastern European states.
This relentless historical narrative upholds the crude morality play that defined the modern West: ‘democracy’ against ‘dictatorship’, ‘tolerance’ versus ‘racism’, and ‘civilization’ against ‘barbarism’. SI provides a robust response to cultural imposition and the unchecked power of multinational tech companies, two issues exacerbated by the LIO’s supranational tendencies.
This supranational post-national moral order also goes against what Thomas Aquinas called the principle of ordo amoris (order of love), which holds that while we should care for all fellow humans, we have graduated duties to those closest to us.19 In political terms, this has been interpreted to mean that leaders rightfully prioritize the well-being of their citizens, much as individuals naturally care for their families and communities first.
This concept provides a moral justification for SI and national sovereignty: it is not only expected but also ethically appropriate for a government to prioritize its people’s interests when making policies. We owe our primary duty of care to our loved ones, then our neighbours, and only then to the world. However, Aquinas (and Augustine before him) did not endorse an exclusive or bigoted love.20 The moral law requires an outward extension of concern. Aquinas wrote that the love of others could indeed be commanded by charity, meaning we can and should care more for those connected to us (kin, countrymen) as this is ordered to the good.
However, this does not nullify our obligations to humanity as a whole. A nation that single-mindedly pursues its advantage and ignores the suffering of foreigners would be exhibiting disordered love, akin to a family man who never helps his neighbours at all. SI embraces this balance. It asserts that a just democratic government will, first and foremost, serve its people—protecting their rights, security, and prosperity—for that is the mandate given by the electorate. Yet it also holds that higher principles of justice and mercy must bind such patriotism. We observe this equilibrium when nations provide foreign aid or disaster relief abroad while attending to their domestic needs or making reasonable sacrifices (e.g., sanctions against a tyrant or environmental commitments) for the greater good. As David Cassidy succinctly puts it, ordered love means ‘prioritizing without excluding, structuring without distorting, and integrating national duties within a higher moral order’. This perspective ‘is not a pretext for isolationism…but a call to love rightly—to ensure patriotism does not devolve into mere nationalism and that love of neighbor extends beyond national borders’.21
In practice, this could mean a country secures its borders and regulates immigration to promote social cohesion, while also providing generous assistance to refugees in crisis regions. Alternatively, it could mean a state fiercely defends its sovereignty against aggressors while joining alliances to protect the freedom of other nations. For example, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hungary, though cautious about military involvement, provided €100 million in humanitarian aid and temporarily hosted over 700,000 Ukrainian refugees, showcasing a structured commitment to ‘love of neighbour’ without distorting its domestic focus.22
Aquinas’s insight thus reinforces SI’s core claim: we have special responsibilities to our compatriots, but we also share a common human dignity that calls for international solidarity. Liberal democracies, rooted in respect for individual rights, are uniquely positioned to uphold both levels of obligation—national and global—without sacrificing one to the other. In Europe, this ordered love justifies nations prioritizing citizens’ security and cultural cohesion—e.g., Austria’s border measures—while cooperating on shared challenges like climate or defence, as Germany’s rearmament suggests.
EU Hegemony or European Fragmentation?
Does SI threaten to fragment Europe and undermine collective action, overlooking the power of voluntary cooperation among sovereign states? SI enables nations to form alliances based on mutual interest, which is more durable than forced collaboration. A compelling example is the deepening Franco–German defence cooperation, wherein France and Germany have voluntarily deepened their military partnership alongside the EU’s centralized structure.23 This agreement, focusing on joint procurement and interoperability, demonstrates that nations can unite effectively without a supranational force. Under SI, such voluntary pacts would be standard, allowing countries to collaborate on security, trade, or
other priorities while retaining autonomy.
Regarding multinational tech giants, SI addresses their global influence, which often outstrips national regulatory capacity. While the EU has attempted centralized solutions like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enforcement remains inconsistent and detached from local contexts.24 SI proposes a decentralized alternative: countries could negotiate intergovernmental agreements on common standards for data privacy or content moderation, with implementation left to national authorities. This ensures policies are tailored to domestic needs and backed by democratic consent, preventing tech firms from exploiting regulatory gaps.
Addressing the deficits and gaps of the LIO, SI directly confronts the democratic deficit perceived within the LIO, particularly in the context of the EU. By insisting that cooperation must be rooted in national consent, SI seeks to empower individual nation states and ensure greater democratic accountability. This approach offers an alternative to the top-down regulatory sprawl of the LIO, where distant technocrats with limited democratic input often shape policies.
While centralized systems might seem faster on paper, SI’s emphasis on legitimacy through national consent can accelerate effective crisis responses. Policies backed by public and governmental support face fewer obstacles during implementation, unlike top-down measures that often provoke resistance. Consider the 2015 European migration crisis: the EU’s imposed quota system lacked broad national buy-in, leading to legal disputes, public backlash, and significant delays. In contrast, SI’s consensual approach would enable nations to form rapid, ad-hoc coalitions tailored to specific crises, such as coordinated border policies or joint aid efforts, based on their capacities and mandates. By ensuring legitimacy, SI minimizes friction and enables swift, sustainable action, proving that decentralized cooperation can outpace centralized mandates in practice.
Ultimately, SI seeks to ground solidarity in national consent, arguing that the most enduring global partnerships are those based on shared values and voluntary commitment, not coercive top-down governance. By realigning global engagements with local obligations, SI aims to repair the breach that arises when universal ideals outrun democratic support, offering a path towards a more resilient, democratic, and sovereign Europe in a post-American era.
These interwoven elements help underscore the fact that Europe’s governance model has fallen short of democratic legitimacy. EU citizens face policies shaped by technocrats that they cannot vote out, from environmental mandates to trade deals. The call for SI counters this by insisting that cooperation, whether on migration or markets, must stem from national consent, not Brussels edicts. SI does not seek to dismantle the EU but argues that its current acute crises make the reform process more urgent: institutions must serve member states, not supplant them. Europe needs to move from centralized technocratic hegemony to sovereignty-based democracy.25
Conclusion: Toward a Renewed Conception of Solidarity
The dissolution of the LIO does not herald a Hobbesian realm of every state against every other.26 Instead, it calls for rethinking the foundations of cooperation. The US, now under Donald Trump’s renewed presidency, appears unwilling to continue underwriting collective security without significant reciprocity. This crisis is an opportunity to rethink the nature of European politics. A Europe rooted in SI might, therefore, be more realistic. States would still tackle climate change, negotiate trade deals, or contain pandemics, but they would do so based on national consensus rather than vague global edict.
Europe stands at a crossroads as America retreats from NATO, immigration stokes domestic unrest, and the EU overreach alienates voters. SI offers a remedy: a continent where nations govern democratically, cooperate voluntarily, and secure themselves without external crutches, by grounding solidarity in national consent. Aquinas’s ordo amoris lends moral clarity: Europe’s leaders must serve their people first, then extend principled aid. Its choice is stark: cling to a dying liberal international order or forge a new path through sovereign internationalism. The latter delivers a continent where nations rule themselves, unite by choice, and thrive in diversity. Leaders must act to reform the EU, empower voters, and secure Europe’s future now.
NOTES
1 G. John Ikenberry, ‘The End of Liberal International Order?’, International Affairs, 94/1 (2018), 7–23.
2 Michael Lind, The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite (Penguin Books, 2020).
3 Marc Trachtenberg, The Cold War and After: History, Theory, and the Logic of International Politics (Princeton University Press, 2021).
4 Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017).
5 For a theoretical strategic analysis on how these factors are helping shape Hungarian grand strategy see Orbán Balázs, Hussar Cut: The Hungarian Strategy for Connectivity (MCC Press, 2024).
6 ‘Secretary Marco Rubio with Megyn Kelly of The Megyn Kelly Show’, United States Department of State (2025), www.state.gov/secretary-marco-rubiowith-megyn-kelly-of-the-megyn-kelly-show/.
7 Peggy Noonan, ‘Trump and the Collapse of the Old Order’, The Wall Street Journal (31 January 2025),
www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-and-the-collapse-of-theold-order-policy-politics-eb2fe178.
8 Adam Tooze, Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World (Penguin, 2018).
9 Matthew Goodwin, and Robert Ford, Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain (Routledge, 2017); see also Arthur Stein, ‘The Great Trilemma: Are Globalization, Democracy, and Sovereignty Compatible?, International Theory, 8/2 (2016), 297–340, doi.org/10.1017/s1752971916000063.
10 ‘Chairman Mast Exposes Outrageous USAID and State Department Grants’, Committee on Foreign Affairs (4 February 2025), https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-mast-exposes-outrageoususaid-and-state-department-grants/.
11 Grace Melton, ‘Biden USAID’s Radical Gender Policy Is Exporting Cultural Colonialism’, The Heritage
Foundation (27 September 2022), www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/biden-usaids-radical-genderpolicy-exporting-cultural-colonialism.
12 See the masterly Christopher Caldwell, The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties
(Simon & Schuster, 2020).
13 Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson, ‘Partnership or Predation? How Rising States Contend with Declining
Great Powers’, International Security, 45/1 (2020), 90–126.
14 Orbán, Hussar Cut: The Hungarian Strategy for Connectivity.
15 Alisdair Young, ‘“Not Your Parents” Trade Politics: The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
Negotiations’, Review of International Political Economy, 23/3 (2016), 345–378.
16 Andrew Wheatcroft, The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe
(Pimlico, 2009); see also Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind
of the Enlightenment (Stanford University Press, 1994).
17 Paul Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford University Press, 1994).
18 Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (Penguin Books, 2005); Frank Furedi, How Fear
Works: Culture of Fear in the Twenty-First Century (Bloomsbury, 2018); Jürgen Habermas, The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays (MIT Press, 2001).
19 Russell Hittinger, The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World
(ISI Books, 2008).
20 Jean Bethke Elshtain, Augustine and the Limits of Politics (University of Notre Dame Press, 2008).
21 David P. Cassidy, ‘Augustine, Aquinas, the Veep, and the Ordo Amoris’, davidpcassidy.com (10 February
2025), www.davidpcassidy.com/blog/thomasaquinas-and-the-ordo-amoris-a-response-to-jd-vancesinterpretation.
22 ‘State Secretary: Hungary Has Provided 98.5 Billion HUF to Ukraine since Start of War’, About Hungary
(25 November 2024), https://abouthungary.hu/newsin-brief/state-secretary-hungary-has-provided-98-5-
billion-huf-to-ukraine-since-start-of-war.
23 ‘Conclusion of the Franco-German Defence and Security Council’, Élysée (29 May 2024), www.elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-macron/2024/05/29/conclusion-of-thefranco-german-defence-and-security-council.
24 Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (PublicAffairs, 2019).
25 Giandomenico Majone, Rethinking the Union of Europe Post-Crisis: Has Integration Gone Too Far (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
26 John Mearsheimer, ‘Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order’, International
Security, 43/4 (2019), 7–50.
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