Fareed Zakaria on the decline of U.S. hegemony and fragility of the rules-based international order

The central challenge in international relations we face is a version of what's going on in the Middle East, which is "can we maintain a rules-based international order that encourages open trade, open commerce, open communication, open information platforms without the great, liberal, hegemon superpower that sustained, built and paid for the international system as it exists today, the United States?"  Because the U.S. is not going to be able to play that role that it's played in the past, partly because it has grown weary, partly because others have risen and will not accept U.S. hegemony.  States like Russia, Iran, groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, are basically trying in various ways to undermine the rules-based order, undermine the international system, burn the house down.  Will they win or will the United States and Europe and Japan and Singapore and Saudi Arabia, all these countries that want order and stability and openness, will they prevail?  That's the big dynamic and that's why what happens in the Middle East has a larger global significance.

~ Fareed Zakaria, "The Conflict in Israel and the State of Foreign Affairs," The Prof G Show - Scott Galloway, 21:15 mark, October 14, 2023