Trump’s return to realpolitik

FOR the past several weeks, US president-elect Donald Trump has contemplated taking over Greenland, blustered about bringing the Panama Canal back under US control and proposed making Canada the 51st state of America.

One can assume that the president-elect is not planning to invade Greenland or Panama and that the majority of Canadians are clearly not interested, to say the least, in joining the USA now.

But with the collapse of the post-World War II liberal international order and the return to the realpolitik-style great power rivalry, Trump and his aides seem to believe that the international system would eventually be fragmented into spheres of influence. The US, therefore, needs to ensure that its geo-strategic position would be pre-eminent vis-a-vis China, Russia and other rising global players such as India and Brazil.