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Since the mid-20th century, the transatlantic bond was based in a common promise to collective defense and a unified ethical framework focusing on democracy, human rights, and the supremacy of law.

That pivotal chapter was inaugurated in March 1947 during a brief speech by Truman, who pledged American support to protect Europe from further expansion by the USSR.

The United States spearheaded the Atlantic alliance, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Monetary Fund, and the world body. It bound itself into what later became known as the "system of global rules", a system where nation-states subscribed to mutual obligations designed to shield democratic societies from hostile authoritarian powers.

Today, the latest US strategic review, published in December, suggests that, from the Washington's perspective, that shared endeavor has concluded; much of what the world took for granted regarding America's role is a thing of the past.

The review refers to the "so-called 'rules-based international order'", putting the latter phrase in quotation marks: a form of undermining through punctuation.

A Change in Policy

Deputy JD Vance alerted America's allies in Europe of this coming change during a speech at the Munich Security Conference in early 2025.

"He stated bluntly that the primary risk to Europe did not come from Russia but from internal sources - from those limiting discourse, stifling opposition and thereby weakening European democracy," the speech noted. He was sharply condemnatory of the "cosmopolitan elite."

A major European publication described the address as a declaration of "political conflict" against Europe.

The recent NSS elevates Vance's observations, converting them from speech into official doctrine.

"Without a doubt America is no longer the country that advocated for the universal principles that have been dominant since the end of the Second World War," observes a previous high-ranking figure from the US State Department and a think tank. "It is shifting to a very different place."

Consequently, if the world is indeed departing from that longstanding system, what is it heading toward? And what are the ramifications for the international system, and specifically for Europe?

''The Global Context Has Changed'

"Global bodies, notably the world body, have been characterized by strong anti-US bias, and have been ineffective for our or any other national goal," argues a analyst at a influential conservative policy institute.

From her perspective - a former senior security advisor to the former President - evolution to the international order is certain in a world in flux.

"An additional factor we face is that when that aforementioned rules-based international order was formed after the WWII, just eight decades past, Chinese power was not a significant issue. We are living in a different world today."

This system of international law, constructed in the aftermath World War Two, was the brainchild of a generation that had witnessed the devastation of major power rivalry and was intent to avert its recurrence.

That order, imperfect and unfinished though it certainly had been, was the legacy of that collective experience.

However, the NSS contends that Washington's approach went astray in the subsequent decades - and it attributes fault to what it calls "American foreign policy elites."

"They tied American policy to a array of global organizations, some of which are driven by outright anti-Americanism and many by a globalist ideology that explicitly seeks to erode national sovereignty," the document states.

It implies that from now on, the US will seek to reduce the reach of global institutions.

A Return to National Power

"The basic building block of global politics is and will remain the nation-state… We stand for the independent authority of nations, against the sovereignty-sapping incursions of the most intrusive transnational organizations…"

The strategy also notes, reflecting on the "distribution of global influence", it states: "The disproportionate power of major powers is a enduring reality of world politics."

Russian leadership reacted to the review with endorsement, stating that much of it aligned with Moscow's own viewpoint.

"In my view Trump, Xi, Putin and their supportive regimes are seeking to revert to an era of major power rivalry," observes a former head of the British military.

However, a leading academic in War Studies believes the new Security Strategy is not as radical a break with the past as it could be interpreted.

"We need to be careful about the rules-based international order, which is a expression that became popular in the last decade or so," he suggests. "Consider the past and you find numerous breaches of the rules, the Vietnam War for example. So there's a certain nostalgic idealization about the past at times and everyone should be cautious regarding longing for what was a complex past."

A Muscular Reassertion of Sovereign Power

America's military operation in the city of Caracas that led to the detention of the country's leader the Venezuelan president is an preliminary case of this more forceful application of independent action.

Some international law experts have questioned the legality of the US intervention, arguing it may have violated global laws governing the use of force.

The US maintains its actions were legally justified.

"Based on domestic legislation it certainly was [legal]," a ex-defense department figure has stated. "The Venezuelan leader - most of our European friends have not acknowledged his government so he is an unlawful ruler. Because of that he is deprived of the normal protections that sovereigns would have...given national statutes that exist in the United States, that would supersede anything the UN says."

The NSS claims, for the United States, the right to be the leading nation in the New World, and to persuade its hemispheric neighbors into support for Washington's interests.

This is a muscular reassertion of the