The heart-warming hustle-bustle of Christmas and the optimistic welcoming in the New Year are over. A quiet content has enveloped the house. Yes, there is a spot of winter gardening to do, but that can wait until the afternoon. With a large steaming mug of coffee in my hands, I eagerly ensconce myself in my comfy armchair to read the selection of interesting essays I’ve gathered over the past month. At the top of my pile lies “The Illiberal International” from Foreign Affairs (December 2025). But instead of burrowing in for a good, long read, I find the premise unsettling.

Framing the world as “us” and “them”

First, there’s the title: “The Illiberal International”. The “international” reminds me of “The Outsider” or “The Other”. The others are illiberal; we, and especially I, are not. They are the bad guys; we are the good. Second, the subtitle, “Authoritarian Cooperation Is Reshaping the Global Order”, seems to imply that there are a bunch of authoritarian leaders out there reshaping the global order — but they shouldn’t be. It ignores the possibility that the world may be shifting from unipolar (one powerful authoritarian leader) to multipolar (several powerful authoritarian leaders). In case the titles were not clear enough, the first paragraph neatly sets anti-capitalism, communism and Soviets on one side and liberalism, democracy, Americans and rules-based order on the other.

Going deeper, the article makes statements about how liberal democracy is declining. While it notes that the US is not the lauded liberal democracy it once was, it does so very lightly, in an offhand manner. The fingers are firmly pointed outward — at countries like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran:

This “illiberal international” was perhaps most visible in Beijing in September 2025, when three of the world’s most prominent autocrats — Chinese leader Xi Jinping, North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose countries cooperate closely on economic and security matters — stood together, projecting defiance of liberal norms.

While this statement makes it sound like some clandestine meeting of Bond villains, the reality is that this was the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which has been around for over 20 years. Its growing list of members covers some “24% of the world’s total area”, “42% of the world population”, and 23% of global GDP.

In the meantime, the Group of Seven’s (G7) (dominated by the West) 51st Summit was held in Canada in June 2025, and a G7 Leaders’ Summit was held in November in South Africa (which the US did not attend, citing the unheard-of genocide of white Afrikaners). And several times in 2025, an entourage of European leaders had meekly lined up in front of their very own autocrat, US President Donald Trump, to plead for tariff reductions, cave in to his trade demands and get his help to continue fighting Russia. In November 2025, Trump said in front of cameras that he didn’t mind being called a fascist. But strangely, those were not moments the article felt the illiberal international was most visible.

The double standards of international cooperation

Statements like “Authoritarian states’ willingness to manipulate politics across borders has grown with their economic and military power” are meant to refer to “The Other,” but it doesn’t take much imagination to see how aptly they fit the past and current actions of the US. Perhaps they imply, rather resentfully, that in the past such actions were the privilege of the West — meaning Europe, Canada, Australia and their undisputed leader, the US — but now those uppity countries elsewhere are doing it too.

The article points out that these “autocratic countries” “often share military intelligence and extend diplomatic protection to one another,” as though it’s a bad thing and not to be done. In the meantime, the West has long cooperated in similar ways through NATO and the Five Eyes intelligence network. The West has also long given diplomatic coverage and, indeed, arms to Israel, despite its crimes of occupation and, most recently, genocide, and the US continues to do so.

The article says, “Liberal democracy has become an endangered species,” but adroitly avoids reflecting on the reasons why. Could it be because of the West’s blatant hypocrisy?

The erosion of trust and the destruction of liberal international order

The Global South has lost trust in the West and its self-righteous promotion of a self-defined, self-serving style of democracy. The reasons why have been trickling in over the decades. As just one example, the US has been involved in over 60 coups since World War II — including those of several democratically-elected governments (e.g., Iran in 1953; Guatemala in 1954; South Vietnam in 1963; Brazil in 1964; Argentina in 1976).

And now there’s a deluge: American disregard of existing trade agreements and imposition of tariffs on friends and foes; their withdrawal from global institutions such as the International Criminal Court, the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) as well as the Paris Climate Change Agreement; their disregard of sovereignty and threats to take over Canada and Greenland; their unquestioning protection and aid of Israel in the face of continued displacement and genocide of Palestinians as well as the protestation of the vast majority of countries in the UN; their unilateral bombing of vessels and seizure of oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela; their unilateral bombing of northern Nigeria to apparently save Christians; their threats to (in lock-step with Israel) bomb Iran because of their firm belief that no other countries apart from the US and their allies should be allowed to have nuclear weapons; the contentious freezing of Russian assets and discussion of their possible confiscation; and continued disregard of Russia’s security concerns and painting it as the ultimate demon with whom no peace can or should be negotiated.

The article claims that now “Democracies are playing by the rules of a game that no longer exists.” I’d say the game no longer exists because the West has broken the rules. The West has weakened the very institutions it worked so hard to establish some 70 years ago. It has blatantly broken its own international rule of law and helped destroy the liberal international order. Liberal democracy may indeed be declining worldwide, but this movement now seems to be led by the US, and its allies are meekly accepting it.

Is democracy the only legitimate path?

A more fundamental question may be “why do we have this intolerant attitude that no other form of government is acceptable”? There are several examples of nondemocratic countries that are doing quite well, and their people seem comparatively content.

Singapore is widely cited as the most prominent example of a nondemocratic system that has achieved exceptional economic and social success. It is a first-world country with a high GDP per capita and excellent public service (education, housing, healthcare). It is perceived as one of the least corrupt countries in the world and one of the happiest. Its governance model emphasizes quality administration and pragmatic, long-term policy implementation over competitive politics.

Several Middle Eastern nations (Qatar, the United Arad Emirates, Saudi Arabia) have achieved high levels of wealth and human development due to vast natural resources (primarily oil and gas), despite being absolute monarchies where citizens have limited political rights.

And of course, China represents a vast, powerful nondemocratic nation that has experienced phenomenal economic growth over the past few decades, lifting a massive population out of poverty. We liberals forget that the word “liberal” implies tolerance and acceptance of other and different opinions, systems and ways of life.

Insecurity, hegemony and the fear of multipolarity

On closer inspection, the article is not so much against authoritarianism or illiberalism, but against such -isms occurring in places that are not the US, where the US is not included or that threaten American hegemony. It seems to come from a place of insecurity. And it seems to be an attempt to demonize and invalidate the world’s genuine efforts towards multipolarity.

Perhaps I’m being mean-spirited in picking on this one essay — especially when many similar essays are being written in the West. Perhaps this was just that last straw to break the camel’s back.

But who am I to blow against the wind? I’m no expert, and I have no authority. I’m just a grandmother, sitting far away from any centers of power, keeping busy with the common, simple, quotidian things of life. However, now and again, as a concerned citizen of the world, I do lift my head to look out, and wonder about what is being said and written by the learned and the powerful — and sometimes, I despair at their stance of certainty.

I’ve interacted with too many people to believe in good guys and bad guys, or good countries and bad countries; largely, it is circumstances that make us. I’ve lived in too many continents and under too many systems to believe that “The West” has a monopoly on Truth and Goodness; God has no religion. And I’ve watched as such dogmatic beliefs have led to suffering. 

Having vented, I’d better go out to my garden and do some weeding around my winter vegetables. The afternoon sun is throwing longer shadows. Voltaire said, “Il faut cultivar notre jardin”; “we must cultivate our own garden”. At least that’s something I can do.

[Kaitlyn Diana edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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