The US leads the West in tearing down the world order
Great powers have never willingly submitted to rules; they recognise them only when the rules serve their own interests. This also means that the international order led and designed by the US is one that only Americans themselves have the power to shatter, observes Lianhe Zaobao associate China news editor Sim Tze Wei.
Ukraine and Greenland reveal a shared mindset among some major-power leaders. Regardless of whether their systems are authoritarian or democratic, they invoke national security to justify coveting the territory of others.
US’s long-time desire for Greenland
Russian President Vladimir Putin has long argued that NATO’s eastward expansion and its attempts to bring Ukraine into the alliance constitute a serious threat to Russia’s security.
US President Donald Trump puts it more vividly: Greenland is swarming with Russian and Chinese ships, and from a national security perspective, the US needs to control Greenland, or else Russia or China would occupy it.
In using territorial ambition to justify security, Putin and Trump are kindred spirits.
A comical scene has emerged. The US’s European allies have risen in opposition to Washington’s attempt to seize Greenland, while Putin not only refrains from expressing opposition but even tries to explain Trump’s behaviour from a historical perspective. Evidently, this helps whitewash the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In March 2025, before the Greenland issue reached boiling point, Putin stated at an Arctic policy forum that as early as the 1860s, the US had planned to buy Greenland, but Congress did not support it then. In the 1940s, the US had protected Greenland “from Nazi takeover” and had proposed purchasing it, but it was rejected.
The Guardian reported that Putin also cited Alaska as an example, saying that in 1868, American newspapers had ridiculed the purchase of Alaska, but that the decision to purchase had been vindicated.
In using territorial ambition to justify security, Putin and Trump are kindred spirits. Both consider their actions entirely justified and are determined to push forward, eroding the rules-based international order.
Trump had coveted Greenland during his first presidential term, and in his return to the White House this time around, he naturally would not let it go. The difference lies in whether the methods are civil or crude. The New York Times reported that in his speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on 21 January, Trump ruled out seizing Greenland by force.
An analysis in The Washington Post suggested a lease model for Greenland based on Guantanamo Bay, so that the US, Greenland and Denmark would all be pleased. Other non-military options included: allowing Greenland to separate from Denmark and join the US through a referendum; paying the people of Greenland and enticing them to leave Denmark to become an autonomous territory of the US; and negotiating with Denmark to purchase the island.
Trump prefers to be a “real villain”, openly expressing contempt for international law and making no attempt to conceal the act of stripping off the “emperor’s new clothes”, allowing the world to see the naked reality of US hegemony and international politics.
The US’s ‘irreversible destiny’
However Greenland is ultimately taken, the US government has already breached international order with the live capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Trump’s inaugural address had foreshadowed all of these.
In his address last year, Trump did not mention specific foreign policies, but he did invoke “manifest destiny” — the mid-19th century belief that arose alongside the US’s territorial expansion. Its proponents held that the expansion of the US territory and influence is an irreversible destiny.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, he further elaborated that the only limit on his power is his “own morality”, and stated bluntly: “I don’t need international law”.
Rather than play the “hypocritical gentleman” speaking empty platitudes, Trump prefers to be a “real villain”, openly expressing contempt for international law and making no attempt to conceal the act of stripping off the “emperor’s new clothes”, allowing the world to see the naked reality of US hegemony and international politics.
This also means that the international order led and designed by the US is one that only Americans themselves have the power to shatter.
Indeed, international law has never been the embodiment of fairness or justice, nor was it designed to restrain great powers. It is, rather, a set of rules formulated by the strong after they have finished dividing up interests, meant to preserve the existing order — in essence, rules agreed upon by major powers at the dining table and then imposed on small- and medium-sized countries to follow.
Great powers have never willingly submitted to rules; they recognise them only when the rules serve their own interests. To quote a line from the TV drama Ming Dynasty in 1566: “The books of the sages are meant to be read, not used to get things done.”
But not every great power has the strength to strip off the emperor’s new clothes. Only Trump’s distinctive style, combined with America’s unipolar hegemonic position, makes this possible. This also means that the international order led and designed by the US is one that only Americans themselves have the power to shatter.
Confronting a new reality
After Venezuela and Greenland, who will be Trump’s next target? The answer is becoming obvious: Canada.
Before heading to Davos in Switzerland for the WEF, Trump posted an image on social media that showed a map of the Americas, with Canada, Greenland and Venezuela covered by the US flag.
As America’s northern neighbour, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney probably started feeling uneasy a long time ago.
After visiting China and Qatar to open up markets beyond the US, Carney delivered a striking speech at the WEF on 20 January, predicting an imminent so-called “post-American era”.
The former banker cited the essay The Power of the Powerless by former Czech President Václav Havel, declaring that the “rules-based international order” is dead, and that its story was partially false. The strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, trade rules were enforced asymmetrically, and international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.
What is unexpected, however, is that the driving force shaping a new international order or a multipolar world does not come from China or the Global South...
He said that recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, and supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. “You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”
Drawing on Havel’s description of how communist systems sustained themselves through lies — where no one believed in the slogan “Workers of the world unite” but everyone put a sign in their shop windows anyway — Carney urged middle powers to remove the shop-window sign of the “rules-based international order” and collectively confront a “new reality”.
He proposed that middle powers act together under a banner of “value-based realism”, adopting strategies of strategic autonomy and alignment, “because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu”.
The “post-American era” may not arrive so soon, and it may never truly come. What is unexpected, however, is that the driving force shaping a new international order or a multipolar world does not come from China or the Global South, but from the dynamic internal struggles within the Western camp itself, as successive actors tear away the “emperor’s new clothes”.
This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “格陵兰风暴掀“皇帝新衣””.
