But the administration is not a retrograde force. Rather, it is reacting to the world as it now is, not as America wishes it to be. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently declared that “we’re seeing the temporary end of a rules-based, multilateral world order based on international law. We are in a phase in which the law of the strongest is being enforced.” It is, he warned, a “new era” in global politics. Whether a “rules-based order” ever existed is questionable. But what is currently coming into being is most certainly not temporary. The future is here, and it promises...