THE LONG VIEW

History whispers through the cracks of policy: what we are witnessing is not the birth of a new world order, but the return of an old one, cloaked in modern executive orders. In 1846, Britain repealed the Corn Laws not out of benevolence, but to consolidate its industrial dominance through free trade—on its own terms. A century later, the Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe not merely to heal, but to anchor it against Soviet influence. In the 1980s, IMF structural adjustment programs 'liberalized' economies across the Global South, but often left them weaker, more dependent, and stripped of policy sovereignty. Now, as China challenges U.S. primacy, America responds not with renewal, but with retrenchment—dismantling USAID, slapping tariffs on Madagascar and Lesotho, and letting AGOA expire. The pattern is unmistakable: when empire feels threatened, it tightens its grip. The tools change—tariffs replace gunboats, executive orders replace colonial governors—but the function remains: to preserve hierarchy. What makes this moment distinct is its brazenness. There is no 'white man’s burden' to justify it, no lofty rhetoric of development. Just power, raw and unapologetic. And in that honesty, we see the truth: the rules-based order was never as rules-based as we pretended. It was always power-based, and now the mask has slipped.[^1][^2][^3][^4][^5] —Marcus Ashworth