While many rightfully fret about the state of the Western alliance, it is probably too late to turn back the clock.

Regardless of future electoral results, America now possesses a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” image in much of the world. America’s unreliability and undermining of a global system created in its image to its benefit are spurring initiatives that were once merely fantasies — including European rearmament and deeper Sino-Japanese cooperation — to proceed at a brisk pace.

Whether one cheers these developments as a necessary shift after too many years of European freeloading in defense spending and welcome’s Trump’s moves to make Europe pay for security guarantees or laments the demise of the post-WWII security architecture that led America to victory in the Cold War and oversaw the largest period of global economic growth in human history is largely immaterial. The changes are happening. The only question now is how to adapt.

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