Third-Worldist Declinism

Crisis of American Foreign Policy Thinking

Horses of Tragedy, Giorgio De Chirico

“A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

For much of the 20th century, Communist ideology offered a unified theory of global politics. It claimed that history belonged to the poor and the colonized, and it gave Western intellectuals a semi-clear but very comfortable moral lens through which to interpret the world, that “we” are in a perpetual cycle of the oppressed against the oppressor, the South against the North, the worker against the capitalist. When the Soviet Union vanished, the political system that sustained these ideas collapsed, but the worldview it shaped and formed did not disappear.

Indeed, the vocabulary of anti-Westernism survived and is today still thriving, its core assumptions included a deep suspicion of power, a rejection of wealth as a marker of legitimacy, and the belief that Western dominance is fundamentally unjust. These ideas no longer required Marxist theory or a revolutionary state as they found new expression through other movements, which one might call “Third-Worldism,” which became the framework that kept them alive.

François Furet, the French historian who studied the rise and fall of revolutionary ideologies, argued that Communism’s true legacy was not its economics or political structures but its mentalité (mindset), its hold over how people interpreted history, power, and justice. In fact, some of the Soviet Union mentalité remained intact.

Former revolutionaries and their intellectual heirs replaced doctrine with instinct. They continued to interpret global affairs through a rigid framework that divided the world into oppressors and oppressed, instead of analyzing power as the result of competition, governance, or strategic calculation, they treated Western dominance as inherently illegitimate.

Indeed, Third-Worldist thinkers abandoned the revolutionary project, some reframed it, but most retained its dualisms. They shifted from supporting insurgencies to adopting a permanent stance of ideological resistance. They recast the international system as fundamentally unjust and argued that the United States had no legitimate claim to global leadership. Ironically, the United States defeated Leninism on the battlefield of the Cold War, only to absorb elements of its Trotskyist legacy into its own intellectual culture.

The global revolution that Trotsky once envisioned reappeared in a different register: as a permanent critique of American power, international order, and the legitimacy of liberal institutions themselves. Third-Worldists neither critique nor have they ever critiqued American policy in terms of effectiveness, coherence, or interest. They rejected its role entirely. But the critique is a mirage, as the goal is to neutralize the U.S. from any position of authority. The United States, in this view, should not adjust its leadership, it should totally renounce it.

This framework spread because it matched broader cultural and intellectual trends. Many in elite institutions began to measure legitimacy not through institutions, constitutional order, or strategic responsibility, but through perceived power differentials. Power itself became suspect. If a state was strong, it was presumed to be coercive. In this sense, the United States replaced the capitalist class as the central agent of historical injustice.

This convergence has produced what can be called Third-Worldist Declinism. It is not a fully developed ideology but a political disposition structured by suspicion of power and a rejection of American legitimacy in global affairs. For a time, this kind of thinking stayed on the fringes. But as America experienced strategic setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, it gained credibility. As rising powers like China and Russia challenged the U.S., the instinct to blame Washington first got stronger. And as parts of the American elite grew more disillusioned with their own country, this worldview moved into the mainstream.

Third-Worldist Declinism: Pretends to mourn history but exists to erase it. Speaks the language of moral exhaustion while calculating the redistribution of power. Offers no solutions, only the satisfaction of seeing authority vanish. Denounces leadership not for its failures but for its existence. Submits nothing to debate except the demand that the United States no longer wins.

What defines this moment is not the presence of criticism toward American foreign policy, it remains essential in any functioning democracy. What is striking is how often that criticism abandons strategic analysis and turns toward renunciation. Instead of driving reform, it promotes apology. Instead of demanding better statecraft, it calls for disengagement. It automatically frames history as a tribunal in which the United States is presumed guilty.

Contrary to common belief, this shift does not reflect a return to realism. Realism assumes the world is dangerous and that power needs to be managed. Third-Worldist Declinism rejects power entirely, especially the United States’.

But that’s not how the world works. China doesn’t apologize for its rise. Russia doesn’t second-guess its invasions. Iran doesn’t ask permission to reshape the region. These states don’t carry the emotional weight of post-colonial guilt. They believe in their missions. They believe in power.

What one should remember is that the American tradition is not grounded in historical guilt. It is grounded in the spirit of the frontier, a conviction that power must be used with purpose, that challenges must be met with initiative and clarity. Rejecting that tradition will not atone for past mistakes. It will erase the very principles —confidence, responsibility, and vision —that made American leadership possible in the first place.