God Didn’t Make a Zero-Sum World
The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 was seen as a triumph for Western liberal democracy, but Ian Shapiro argues that the US made five disastrous decisions between 1993 and 2020 that undermined the international liberal democratic order. Shapiro's book 'After the Fall' analyzes why the expected global democratic triumph after the Cold War failed to materialize.
The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 marked a significant moment for Western liberal democracy. However, according to Ian Shapiro's book 'After the Fall', the US made several decisions that undermined the international liberal democratic order. These include expanding NATO to include East European states, attempting to turn Afghanistan and Iraq into democracies, responding to the 2008 financial crisis with bank bailouts, attacking Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and implementing a policy of high tariffs. Shapiro argues that these actions damaged America's international standing, polarized US politics, and weakened the liberal democratic international order. The expected global democratic triumph after the Cold War failed to materialize, with countries like Russia and China becoming more authoritarian. Shapiro's analysis highlights the challenges faced by liberal democracies around the world.
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