Ethics in a Post-Liberal World

In summer 2018, I wrote an essay, “The Assault on Ethics,” highlighting the “red lines crossed without consequence” in the early months of the first Trump administration.

Seven years later, and only seven months into the second Trump term, new red lines have been crossed, and some, it seems, have been erased for the foreseeable future.

With minimum due process and maximum speed, government agencies have been slashed; top military and intelligence community leadership have been purged; tariffs have been imposed, revised, and imposed again; universities have been defunded; campus protestors have been arrested; deportations have been ratcheted up; and law firms and businesses have been threatened with sanctions—all testing the boundaries of the American law, politics, and the norms of daily life.

I find myself revisiting a question I asked back in 2021, “Are Americans Facing an Undemocratic Future?” At that time, shortly after the January 6 Capitol assault, I was confident of the resilience of American democracy, rooted in our history, culture, and ethics.

But today, I am less optimistic, as the essential norms of the liberal order—pluralism, equal rights, and a belief in democracy itself—appear insufficient to combat the powerful forces of the illiberalism of the Trump presidency and its enablers.

Consider the theatrics and spectacle of these images: masked ICE officers taking people off the streets, the director of Homeland Security posing for photos while praising the harsh conditions of the deportation prison in El Salvador, the ghoulish naming of detention centers such as Alligator Alcatraz and Cornhusker Clink, and the announcement that all 55 million visa holders in the United States are now under review as the State Department redefines criteria for “good moral character” for new applications to include political views that align with the current administration.

The dystopian list goes on as the administration uses its executive power to single out its enemies, pardon and enrich its friends, highlight its cruelties, and amass as much power as it can before it is inevitably challenged by Congress, the courts, and public opinion.

It is disorienting to have seen the deployment of armed soldiers in the streets of Los Angeles, and now, in Washington, DC, absent the genuine emergencies that a good faith interpretation of what the law would suggest. It would be one thing to acquiesce to executive discretion were there a particular moment of social unrest. But this is combined with Trump’s fulminations about the illegitimacy of past elections, a renewed attack on mail-in voting, and his press conference aside suggesting that if there were a war in three years maybe we won’t have an election. This is a red flag that would be foolish to ignore, especially in light of recent proposals to create specialized units for rapid deployment of the National Guard, and to send this force into Chicago, New York, and other cities.

And yet, the response is muted.

Ethics Abandoned

Internationally, norms are falling by the wayside just as quickly and comprehensively. The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza highlights the fecklessness of international law and the moral assertion of the duty to protect and assist innocent non-combatants. The atrocities of October 7, 2023, remain seared in the mind as hostages suffer in captivity, thousands of civilians are bombed and starved in Gaza, ethics are abandoned, and a new cycle of atrocity takes hold.

President Trump’s rhetoric and diplomacy casts doubt on any semblance of global stability, beginning with what had been an essential pillar of the post-World War II order—NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee. His policies, to the extent they can be discerned, cast doubt on what might follow the dramatic bombing of Iranian nuclear sites and the recent Trump-Putin Alaska summit.

With Trump’s novice negotiator, Steve Witkoff, handling the Ukraine, Iran, and Gaza portfolios singlehandedly, each of the diplomatic tracks has a common approach: the assertion of unilateral U.S. power wielded transactionally, no grand strategy, and no articulated end state for any of the conflicts.

The Trump foreign policy features improvisation, unified by a single feature: the undermining of cooperative norms on every global issue, punctuated by unilateral assertions designed to counter multilateral efforts.

On climate, the United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement, followed by executive action and legislation designed to halt progress on renewable energy. On foreign aid and development, USAID has been disbanded, and the U.S. has withdrawn from WHO, UNESCO, and the UN Human Rights Council. On space, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty is thinning to the point of disappearance as Russia, China, and the U.S. militarize and threaten to weaponize space as commercial interests grow as well.

Those who are relying on some remnant of the liberal world order to temper this behavior are missing the moment.

The world has moved on, principally because America has embraced an amoral foreign policy, one that masquerades as realism or realpolitik but in reality is machtpolitik—an approach that prioritizes dominance, raw power, and coercion. Gone are the post-WWII American foreign policy practitioners who suggested a balance between force, restraint, and legitimacy. Simply put: American power is no longer behind the very principles of the world order it helped create.

It is heartening to see great scholars continue to tout the importance of norms. The role of ethics, mores, and law do remain critically important, and they continue to animate the work of Carnegie Council and our Ethics & International Affairs journal. However, it has never been more urgent to connect this work to the changing power dynamic of the post-liberal world.

For example, consider the norm known as the “nuclear taboo” that shows most Americans believe the use of nuclear weapons are a violation of international law. Surveys also show that military officers indicate a willingness to disobey orders to use nuclear weapons when they understand such orders to be inherently unlawful.

These are important moral benchmarks. But are we in a world where public opinion holds sway? And do we want to base nuclear posture on the prospect of military officers disobeying orders? As formal norms collapse and a strategic nuclear arms race between Russia, China, and the U.S. continues unabated, it is naïve to think that soft norms will suffice.

And here we come to the formal setting of international law. As important as treaties have been, international law today is a weak suggestion rather than a powerful force that is effectively channeling power. Without the support of the great powers, international law is in the backseat, unable to influence world events. We see this daily in numerous conflicts from Gaza to the Congo.

As scholar Janina Dill says at the conclusion of her inaugural lecture of the Dame Louise Richardson Chair in Global Security at the University of Oxford, the “missing ingredient” in making law actionable and effective is the ethics of leaders and policymakers.

“It matters who inhabits these processes” of international law, says Professor Dill. “Law cannot make up for the utter lack of political courage and moral consistency that befalls leaders who refuse to apply it.”

Dill’s insight captures the essence of the post-liberal world. It is a world that has given up on ethics and is in the process of aligning power for illiberal and authoritarian ends. This is a world that has forsaken and rejected the foundational principles of liberalism. It no longer respects the idea that rights and responsibilities should be defined and executed according to an agreed upon process of compromise and tradeoffs.

To bring liberal norms back to life with the currency and traction they deserve will require the power of states, the power of business, the power of institutions, and the power of the people. Critical in this moment, it will also require individual acts of courage.

The Cost of Complicity

Over the past 10 years, countless leaders have buckled at precisely the moment liberalism was on the line. In the first term, we remember John Bolton failing to testify at the first Trump impeachment trial as he touted his forthcoming book featuring passages suggesting Trump’s unfitness for office. Can we be surprised that Mr. Bolton is now in the crosshairs of Trump’s retribution? Complicity is not cost-free.

Much the same can be said of General Mark Milley, who failed to resign after his ill-advised appearance in Lafayette Square Park in his combat fatigues during the Black Lives Matter protests (only later to apologize and, after Trump left office, release an unsent letter warning of the danger of politicizing the military). Not to resign and to speak out forcefully was a moment missed, never to be fully retrieved.

So far in the second term, we note the leaders of law firms and universities cutting deals to avoid losing government business and support, and some to gain personal favor. One of the highest-profile examples, right out in plain sight, is Mayor Eric Adams of New York City agreeing to cooperate with ICE enforcement as the federal government drops corruption charges against him.

The examples cited here are but a few among many—it is almost impossible to catalogue the complicities and their degree of egregiousness, ranging from acquiescence to corruption. The fact is, power is consolidating around post-liberals who embrace a post-truth world where they can erase history, distort reality, seize power, and impose their worldview.

But this much we know, and the diagnosis could not be clearer. Liberal principles hang in the balance as we await a countervailing force necessary to revive them.

Until then, we are in a post-liberal world where transgression beats fidelity every time.