Are We Reliving the 1890s, 1930s, or 1950s?

Foreign Policy·🕐 2 sa önce·👁 0 görüntülenme

What history can and cannot explain about today’s unraveling order.

U.S. foreign policy during Donald Trump’s second term has unleashed deep and wide-ranging concern about international stability and the future of the global order. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump has created a “rupture in the world order”; Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, following Trump’s threats to invade Greenland, said that the old world order “is now gone.” The Munich Security Report 2026, released ahead of the eponymous conference, described U.S. policy under Trump as a “sweeping destruction” of the post-1945 order, whereas others have called it “the great dismantling” and even the end of modernity. Trump’s war against Iran has further inflamed tensions between Washington and its allies, weakening U.S. influence around the world.

However, the U.S.-led world order already ceased to exist long before Trump’s return to power. Neither he nor his MAGA movement are the main drivers of change; current Washington policies are better understood as a symptom of fundamental structural shifts that have already occurred. Indeed, the rise of right-wing populism, nationalism, protectionism, and heightened geopolitical contestation reaches far beyond Trump.

The scale and depth of these changes have unleashed a debate about which similarly disruptive historical era might best help us understand and navigate the current upheaval. The three periods often suggested are the late 1800s, the 1930s, and the Cold War.

The origin of the current anti-democratic and nationalist turn in U.S. and European politics has much in common with the rise of militant nationalism in the 19th century. In the 1890s, both sides of the Atlantic saw a strong nationalist and protectionist response to a longer period of globalization, deregulation, and free trade, just like today’s populist right leverages a growing sense among Western electorates that economic liberalism and globalization have left people powerless. Some observers furthermore claim that the end of U.S. hegemony will lead to a new multipolar age resembling the great power rivalries of late 19th and early 20th centuries, a period that was characterized by intense arms races, great power claims to spheres of influence, geopolitical confrontation, and war. Yet the late 1800s differs from the present in fundamental ways. Any serious look at the balance of power today makes clear that we are living in a bipolar world defined by the rivalry between the United States and China. None of the upheavals we are seeing today makes this another multipolar age.

The historical parallel most often invoked today is the 1930s. Some have warned that Trump behaves like a 1930s fascist dictator or that his administration is on a protofascist course. Others argue that Trump’s love of tariffs echoes the U.S. response to the 1929 financial crash, when the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act helped propel the world into an economic tailspin.

But the interwar years differ in two significant ways from the present. First, the international power structure remained multipolar. The European great powers faced each other in a single theater of potential conflict, a much more volatile geopolitical situation than today’s bipolarity. Bipolar power structures are generally more stable than multipolar ones. And even though a limited war between China and the United States is possible, Europe’s multiple powers in close proximity to one another made a highly destructive total war—as opposed to a limited conflict in a distant maritime theater—structurally more likely in the 1930s.

German Chancellor Adolf Hitler walks with Italian leader Benito Mussolini and other officials in Florence, Italy, on May 10, 1938.Mondadori via Getty Images

Second, the origin of the political and economic convulsions of the 1930s is also vastly different from the current turbulence. These were to a large degree aftershocks of World War I, which created deep-seated animosities and revisionist resentments, making much of Europe a breeding ground for violent revolutionary movements like fascism. The origin of the current challenges is arguably less revolutionary. The Trump administration’s authoritarian character surely represents a threat to U.S. democracy, and it would be a huge mistake to neglect the socioeconomic reasons why Americans twice elected Trump. Right-wing political forces are not only transforming the United States but may soon be the leading political force in Europe as well. But as the British historian Richard J. Evans has noted, hostility to democracy and ultra-nationalism are not necessarily the same as fascism. Indeed, the 1890s may be more instructive than the 1930s in terms of sociopolitical reactions to upheavals like globalization.

In terms of the most important factor shaping any world order—balance of power—the era that most foreshadows the present is the U.S.-Soviet Cold War rivalry. Then and now, the power structure is bipolar. (Some still consider Russia a third pole, but that country’s GDP is only 10 percent of China’s, and its military spending remains roughly half of Beijing’s, despite being on a war economy footing. Russia is indeed a challenge to European security and stability, but Moscow is in no position to dominate Europe.) The 2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy clearly names China as the United States’ central security challenge. But unlike U.S.-Soviet bipolarity, which emerged abruptly from the ashes of World War II, the shift to U.S.-China rivalry has been incremental. With China rising gradually and peacefully over several decades, many politicians, strategists, and observers of international relations have been slow to comprehend the consequences of this fundamental shift.

As we consider the strong parallels between the Cold War and today, it helps to identify the four major differences that set them apart.

Missiles on parade in Moscow’s Red Square on Nov. 7, 1957.Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

First, the geography differs. Beijing’s geographic and military reach is substantially smaller than Moscow’s was during the Cold War. U.S.-Soviet rivalry spanned multiple theaters—Europe, the Middle East, and much of Asia—and resulted in a number of proxy wars there and elsewhere. Today’s rivalry is largely contained in a single geographic theater: the Western Pacific. This allows the United States to prioritize balancing China in Asia over securing Europe. The transatlantic region has consequently moved to the periphery of great power politics. U.S.-China rivalry is also primarily maritime. This shift from land to sea may reduce the risk of total and thus nuclear war, but it could also increase the risk of a limited war at sea between the United States and China with uncertain escalation dynamics.

Second, Moscow remained largely outside the U.S.-led multilateral system, enabling Washington to use international institutions to enhance cooperation with allies and strengthen its position against Moscow. China, however, has become a major player within the multilateral framework, so Washington’s reduced interest in the system is hardly surprising. Still, a withdrawal from international institutions on the scale pursued by Trump is both unnecessary and unwise.

Third, whereas the Soviet Union was mainly a military power, China is an economic powerhouse as well. This has huge implications for U.S. policy and the international economic order. Bipolar rivals generally view economic interdependence as a vulnerability and implement policies to avoid or reduce it. The Soviet Union’s lack of economic power and low level of economic interaction with the West made it relatively easy for the United States to implement an economic containment policy using strict export controls.

The lack of a counterweight encourages intervention and overreach.

A new book debates who wins wars and why.

China represents a different challenge. Unsurprisingly, Washington has abandoned its decades-long policy of economic engagement with China, replacing it with tariffs and de-risking. However, China’s economic strength makes this a difficult process. Beijing’s dominance of specific sectors, including critical minerals and renewable energy, gives it considerable leverage. At the October 2025 U.S.-China summit in South Korea, Beijing successfully played the critical minerals card, forcing Washington to back down on some of its economic sanctions. Trump’s ineffectual visit to Beijing in May further confirms that Washington is no longer in a position to impose substantial changes to Beijing’s economic model.

Furthermore, China has become a key trading partner and investor for U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, complicating Washington’s efforts to implement de-risking. The Biden and first Trump administrations attempted to coordinate China policy with allies. Washington seems to ignore them altogether today. Many European countries are now contemplating how to balance three tasks: protecting jobs, protecting industry, and reducing vulnerabilities. To provide employment for their voters, governments may welcome Chinese investment, but if they want to reduce vulnerabilities and stem further industrial decline, they may need to protect their markets from Chinese competition. Trump’s tariff policies towards U.S. allies is certainly not helpful.

Fourth, the trajectory of U.S. power differs. When the Cold War started, U.S. power was preeminent and still rising, but it is in relative decline today. During the Cold War, it was evident that the West offered its citizens much better living standards than the Soviet bloc could ever hope to reach, whereas today, Americans and Europeans have a growing sense that they are losing out from globalization. This is where the parallel with the 1880s becomes relevant again: Nationalism, right-wing populism, protectionism, and mercantilism are all on the rise after a long period of liberalism and globalization.

Artillery guns fire salutes as U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at a reviewing stand for a military parade in Washington, D.C., on June 14, 2025.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

So what is the relevance of this excursion into history? It’s a useful reminder that the effects of a crumbling U.S.-led order should not be a surprise. It was entirely predictable that U.S.-China bipolarity would force Washington to pay less attention to Europe, show less interest in multilateralism, and pursue protectionism. Washington’s newfound emphasis on hemispheric defense is also no surprise, given frequent U.S. interference in Latin America during the Cold War to counter Soviet influence.

What no historical parallel could predict, however, was Trump’s shocking lust for Greenland and aggressive claims on Canada. Regardless of any nationalist turn, there is no way that it could serve U.S. interests in a bipolar system to undermine relationships with key allies. The Greenland issue is largely indicative of the Trump administration’s lack of geopolitical understanding. These bizarre aspects of Trump’s behavior underline that no historical parallel can be a perfect guide for addressing today’s rupture in the global order.

Finally, in terms of the risk of great power war, the late 1800s and 1930s are not the best guide for today’s world, but both eras show that unrestrained nationalism and protectionism are geopolitically destabilizing. The Cold War is probably the most useful reference for how a bipolar order reduces the risk of great power war—but as we have seen, U.S.-China rivalry differs in too many ways from the U.S.-Soviet one to make it a simple reprise. In today’s bipolar system, the obvious choice for many countries would be to balance or bandwagon with one of the two superpowers, just like most did during the Cold War. That so many powers in Europe and Asia are now contemplating hedging strategies is a final indication of the uncertainty and novelty of our age that even the most relevant precedent can never resolve. History, if used wisely, can add context, highlight similarities, expose differences, and provide a deeper understanding of the forces at play. But even in the hands of the ablest scholar or strategist, it will not provide any simple or straightforward answers to our contemporary challenges.

This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage of the Trump administration. Follow along here.

Jo Inge Bekkevold is a senior China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies and a former Norwegian diplomat.

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