Two Glimpses of a Grim Post-American Future
As the United States under President Trump recedes from world leadership, things are not looking so good elsewhere on earth. Two new books—with similarly morbid titles—have arrived to warn of big trouble ahead for both the European Union and the emerging economies of Asia.
The End of the Asian Century by Michael Auslin offers a point-by-point debunking of the “Asiaphoria” that gripped so many imaginations a decade ago. James Kirchick’s The End of Europe tours a continent in which democratic and liberal forces are losing ground to Russia-infatuated extremists of right and left. The conclusion left behind by a reading of the two together: The post-American world predicted by Fareed Zakaria a decade ago is shaping up as an exceedingly unstable and uncomfortable place.
Michael Auslin taught history at Yale and now holds a resident scholar slot at the American Enterprise Institute. (He and I
