ImaginingaWorldwithouttheUSatitsCenter:ReducingtheLeversofAmericanDisruptioninAfricaandEurope

The architecture undergirding international relations and economics since the end of the Second World War is rapidly coming apart. While the current American president is the most visible actor violently tugging on its seams, both developed and developing world actors have, for years, registered complaints and dissatisfaction with the system, believing it to be inherently unfair. At the extreme end of the political spectrum, both camps have voices calling for a wholesale dissolution of the system. None of these voices has, however, proffered the vaguest outline of a superior replacement. To heed them is to risk abandoning an imperfect “practical” in search of an elusive “perfect” that may never materialize. Such an outcome will have gravest repercussions among the world’s weakest economies, especially in Africa. Therefore, this essay argues that the much-maligned international order deserves a second chance, with a catch, – it must evolve without a central role for its erstwhile greatest benefactor.