There is a particular kind of nauseating theater that occurs when the self-anointed architects of global stability gather in a television studio to mourn the death of their own relevance. Recently, we were treated to the spectacle of François Picard hosting a collection of professional talkers—including Kethevane Gorjestani and Patrice Paoli—to discuss the terrifying prospect of a world where Donald Trump continues to treat international law like a fast-food wrapper thrown from a moving limousine. The premise of their collective hand-wringing is that Trump is ushering in a 'different logic of power,' as if the previous logic was anything other than a thin veneer of civility stretched over the same old greed and structural violence. To the 'non-journalist' eye, watching a former French government spokesperson bemoan the loss of 'multilateralism' is like watching a florist complain that a hurricane has no respect for the arrangement of the petunias.

Let’s be clear: Trump’s 'logic of power' is not logic at all; it is a primal scream from the American id, a transactional tantrum that views every treaty, alliance, and legal framework as a personal insult to his bank account. The Right, in its infinite capacity for sycophancy, views this as 'unpredictable genius'—a bold defiance of the 'globalist' elites. In reality, it is the behavior of a man who cannot read a document longer than a tweet and decides, therefore, that the document must be a conspiracy. Trump isn't 'defying' international law out of a coherent philosophical opposition to the Hague; he is defying it because it represents a boundary, and his only consistent ideology is that boundaries are for people who aren't rich enough to buy their way out of them. He is the physical embodiment of the American appetite: loud, undisciplined, and convinced that the rest of the planet is a buffet he has already paid for.

On the other side of this intellectual vacuum, we have the 'international community'—specifically the European contingent, represented here by the likes of Paoli. These are the high priests of the 'rules-based order,' a phrase they repeat with the rhythmic desperation of a monk praying to a god that left the building in 1945. They argue that Europe must 'step up' with a 'clear, unified voice' to defend multilateralism. It’s a lovely sentiment, provided you ignore the fact that Europe’s 'unified voice' usually sounds like twenty-seven people arguing about the temperature of the soup while the kitchen is on fire. The Left and the centrist bureaucrats cling to these institutions—the UN, the WTO, the various accords—because these structures provide them with the illusion of control. They believe that if they can just get enough diplomats in a room with enough artisanal mineral water, they can negotiate with the void. They mistake the map for the territory, convinced that the 'international law' they talk about actually exists outside of the moments when it is convenient for a superpower to ignore it.

Ambassador Paoli’s candid assessment of shifting global dynamics is essentially an admission of impotence. He calls for 'cooperative engagement' at a time when the world’s primary superpower has decided that cooperation is a synonym for 'losing.' The hypocrisy is staggering. For decades, the 'rules-based order' was simply a system where the West set the rules and the rest of the world followed the orders. Now that a crude, orange barbarian has decided to stop pretending and just take what he wants, the Europeans are shocked—not by the injustice, but by the lack of decorum. They aren't mourning the death of law; they are mourning the death of the polite lies that made their careers possible. They want to return to a world where the US bombs countries quietly and with the proper paperwork, rather than shouting about it on social media.

This is the fundamental tragedy of our era: a choice between a moronic, greedy transactionalism and a performative, hypocritical institutionalism. Trump’s 'different logic' is just the honest face of American hegemony, stripped of its makeup and its teleprompters. Europe’s 'defensive' stance is just the desperate flailing of a museum curator trying to protect a collection of smoke. There is no 'unified voice' coming to save the day, because there is no unity in a house built on the sand of collective delusion. Picard and his guests can offer all the 'candid assessments' they want, but they are merely narrating their own extinction. The global norms are not shifting; they are collapsing under the weight of their own absurdity, and we are all stuck in the audience, watching the actors argue about the script while the stage burns to the ground.