Lowy Institute Papers | 03 December 2018

America vs the West

Can the liberal world order be preserved?

  • Kori Schake

Can the liberal world order be preserved?

  • Kori Schake

‘The rules-based international order is being challenged … not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor, the US.’
European Council President Donald Tusk, 8 June 2018

Under President Donald Trump, the United States has burned like a wildfire through the goodwill it accrued in seventy years of propagating its liberal political values. Can Western nations preserve the liberal world order against rising authoritarian powers without the United States, or with Washington working against them?

In America vs the West, Kori Schake argues that the success of the liberal order is not preordained. It will have to be fought for, compromised for, and rejuvenated. Can it be done without American leadership? That will depend on the strengths of the major challengers – Russia and China – but above all on whether the West’s middle powers are prepared to band together.

America vs the West is available to purchase from all good bookstores ($12.99) and online. An e-book version is also available. The Lowy Institute’s Bligh Street headquarters has a limited number of copies available for purchase at our reception.

Kori Schake - AMERICA VS THE WEST published with Penguin



1. Is there a liberal order to preserve?

2. Hegel and Fukuyama put to the test

3. The call is coming from inside the House

4. Models for managing a fraying order

5. The discontents of disorder