Prof. Roman Gerodimos
Professor of Global Current Affairs at Bournemouth University. His research focuses on the challenges facing civic engagement and security, and on the psychosocial drivers of violence. He has led research projects funded by NATO, the UK Department for International Development, and the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is the editor of Interdisciplinary Applications of Shame/Violence Theory (Palgrave Macmillan 2022).
X: @gr_roman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roman-gerodimos-11037b/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roman.gerodimos
Email: rgerodimos@bournemouth.ac.uk
U.S. Election 2024
12. The campaigns’ pandemic memory hole (Prof Michael Serazio)
13. America’s kingdom of contempt (Prof Barry Richards)
14. Americanism, not globalism 2.0: Donald Trump and America’s role in the world (Prof Jason A. Edwards)
15. The politics of uncertainty: Mediated campaign narratives about Russia’s war on Ukraine (Dr Tetyana Lokot)
16. The U.S. elections and the future of European security: Continuity or disruption? (Dr Garret Martin)
17. Trump’s victory brings us closer to the new world disorder (Prof Roman Gerodimos)
18. Abortion: Less important to voters than anticipated (Dr Zoë Brigley Thompson)
19. Roe your vote? (Dr Lindsey Meeks)
20. Gender panics, far-right radicalization, and the effectiveness of anti-trans political ads (Dr Thomas J. Billard)
21. U.S. politics and planetary crisis in 2024 (Dr Reed Kurtz)
22. Trump and Musk for all mankind (Prof Einar Thorsen)
23. Guns and the 2024 election (Prof Robert J. Spitzer)
24. Echoes of Trump: Potential shifts in Congress’s communication culture (Dr Annelise Russell)
Donald Trump’s victory will have profound implications for sites of regional re-alignment (Ukraine, Middle East), for liberal democracies, and for the international system more broadly. His re-election creates a shockwave that will be felt around the world.
The initial shockwave
The shockwave will reach Brussels, Paris and Berlin. European countries will have to decide whether they shore up their defence and deterrence capabilities, and whether they do that within or outside NATO.
The shockwave will hit Kyiv, Chisinau and Tbilisi. Trump’s comeback opens the way for Putin to continue his campaign of expansion across former USSR republics. Ukraine will be pressured to give up sovereign territory that it has sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives to defend.
The shockwave will be felt across Beirut and Gaza, as Trump is a staunch ally of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump has pledged to “end the war”, but it is unclear what that means and how it can be achieved.
Finally, the shockwave will reach the Pacific and hit Beijing, Taipei and Seoul. The issue is not Trump’s combative approach to China – there is bipartisan support for a strategy of containment – but his unpredictability, which may hasten Xi Jinping’s plans to move against Taiwan.
What happens next?
A pessimistic but linear and plausible scenario sees the continuing unraveling of liberal democracy, global security and the norms-based order: Ukraine capitulates; NATO and EU deterrence fails; Putin feels emboldened and moves against Moldova or the Baltics, while his campaign of civil strife and fake news further erodes Europe, leading to electoral successes by the far right and the far left in France and Germany, and by puppet regimes in Central and Eastern Europe; Netanyahu feels emboldened and takes further action against Lebanon and Iran, further damaging the chances of a viable ceasefire and a two-state solution; Xi Jinping attacks Taiwan edging towards Graham T. Allison’s Thucydides Trap. The United States either honors its pledge to defend it leading to a global conflict between two nuclear superpowers, or fails to do so, leading to the destruction of Taiwan, and further empowering China. Without the moral, symbolic, diplomatic and military support of the U.S., liberal democracies around the world cave under the pressure of globalization, digitization and rising populism. The axis of authoritarian powers – China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Turkey – consolidate their alliance and expand their influence across the Global South. The international system moves to a new world (dis)order in which global cooperation on the climate crisis, artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons and pandemics fails.
There is a less linear, less plausible, more optimistic scenario: following the shock of Trump’s withdrawal, Europe develops security “antibodies” and shores up its defense resources and posture; the EU moves towards flexible decision-making and draws red lines that weaken Putin’s and Xi’s supporters in Europe; Trump’s détente with Putin leads to a strategic realignment realizing Henry Kissinger’s dream of an alliance that will isolate China and fracture BRICS; with U.S. support, the Abraham Accords are revived, creating a stronger regional counterbalance to Iran; the Trump administration follows a credible strategy of containment and deterrence against China, protecting Taiwan and limiting China’s erosion of Western institutions and businesses. All that leads to a fragile but balanced multipolar world order in which no single power has enough global influence to destabilize the system. New forums of diplomatic exchange and mechanisms of international cooperation and decision-making emerge.
The new world (dis)order
Both scenarios are neat, tidy, coherent. Reality is rarely so. Reality may combine elements from both, and many other scenarios that we cannot even imagine at this point.
Despite all the rhetoric and drama, Trump’s first term was less apocalyptic than originally thought. While U.S. soft power and global influence sustained damage, in foreign policy terms the administration’s track record was mixed: his criticism of NATO partners was valid; the (haphazard and failed) attempt at rapprochement with North Korea was useful; the Abraham Accords were a success (perhaps the reason for the October 7 attacks by Hamas).
There is no guarantee that the second Trump term will look like the first. Many senior advisors – from national security advisors and White House staff to Pentagon, State and CIA officials – who worked hard from the inside to counterbalance Trump’s destructive urges, have now left and turned against him. His vice president, J.D. Vance, seems more ideologically driven, politically ruthless and energetic than Mike Pence ever was. Trump will be the oldest president. It is not unreasonable to imagine that he might leave the presidency before he completes his second term. A Vance Administration would look and sound different in tone, structure and efficacy, but the substance would not change. America is trying to become great again. But isolationism has never worked.