Davids vs. Goliaths

Social Capital, simply put, is what makes civilization go. At the neighborhood level, it's what makes you feel at ease with crossing your street to ask your neighbor for that specific wrench you need to tighten that one hinge you're trying to fix. The trust you have in your neighbors --the comfort of knowing your car tires won't be slashed at night or that your house won't be broken into-- allows you to focus on things that are different from security and survival to (hopefully) be more productive. Sure, you can also spend all your time doomscrolling and brainrotting, but at least you have the optionality to do something good with that extra time. When it works in harmony, the social contract we tacitly (sometimes expressly) enter into allows us to develop our human capacities. 

After all, what is art and the pursuit of knowledge if not just the leisurely, luxurious activity that's permitted only when those with the capacity, the interest, the means and intent to develop it are truly free from the threat of being killed, persecuted or harassed by others within their own community? 

Step back from the neighborhood sphere, and that social contract becomes the international accords your country abides by. Trade agreements, security alliances, cross-border tax information exchanges. All those institutions are a trust construct, too. Valid and executable only if peoples believe other peoples participating in them also believe in (and uphold) them. They're born of the trust between two (or more) nations that saw they could mutually benefit by working together. 

The institutions created after the end of World War II --the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF, NATO, and the WTO-- were the social contract that gave us some measure of international Social Capital. All this set the stage for the period some --very fondly-- call "Pax Americana". It created a somewhat harmonious international environment which allowed trade to flourish, technology to evolve, science to develop. 

Was it perfect? Of course not! "Pax Americana" saw its hegemon (the U.S.) topple multiple regimes (Grenada-1983, Panama-1989, Iraq-2003, Afghanistan-2001–2021) and invade many others (Vietnam-1955–1975, Laos & Cambodia-1960s–70s, Dominican Republic-1965). It also saw Russia topple  governments in Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), Afghanistan (1979) and invade Georgia (2008) and now Ukraine (2014 & 2022–Present). 

If said "Pax" was sufficiently harmonious, it was only because it never involved real scrimmages between world powers, or clashes between technologically advanced ones. Definitely not between nuclear ones. Yes, the Cold War was a close one, but kinetic war was ultimately avoided.

These days, the institutions that underpinned this "Pax Americana" are dying. Vance's 2025 speech in Munich was a "declaration of ideological war" against Europe. A series of events little by little chipped away at the international institutional framework underpinning this "Pax Americana". The mentioned Russian invasion of Ukraine; the starving of funds to the U.N.; the political attacks by the hegemon on NATO; the current review of the U.S.' membership to U.N.'s various agencies themselves. The dismantling of globalization and international trade via tariff wars (threatening the Dollar's status as reserve currency in the way). Trump's Davos threat "we can do this [U.S.' Greenland takeover] the easy way or the hard way" (paraphrasing), is confirmation that NATO is in its deathbed. 

These are all just proximate causes, of course. Real ones preceded them: like the world's population political radicalization through social media, and soaring economic inequality+stagnant social mobility.

At the same time as the dismantling of these institutions is happening, the hegemon is spearheading the creation of new ones from scratch --all with itself at its center (and without the consensus/democratic flavor of the old ones). The Shield of the Americas (to combat the drug cartel activities in the continent); the Board of Peace (literally, to replace the U.N.).

We're witnessing international Social Capital crumbling under the weight of the birth of a new, post "Pax Americana" era.

Embedded in the middle of all this instability and institutional rebuilding is an aspect seldom talked about together with geopolitics: the role technology plays at evening out warfare capabilities among countries that erstwhile wouldn't have been considered equals. The latest wars are great examples. Everybody thought Russia (Putin included) would topple Volodymyr Zelenskyy within hours of invading Ukraine in February 2022. It's been thanks in great part to its drone capabilities that Ukraine has been able to stave off collapse. Its drones that can strike 1000 kilometers deep into Russia, and AI-guided autonomous interceptors that can go for 320kms --their technology so advanced, they're sharing knowhow with Europe. Technology --along with Europe's budgetary support-- has allowed Ukraine to avoid becoming to Russia what Grenada was to the U.S. in '83. 

Something similar can be said of Iran, now. The U.S. also thought they'd topple the regime very quickly hours after their shock-and-awe, yet Iran is digging in, already elected a new leader, and is very effectively playing the strait of Hormuz card. As in Ukraine, none of this would have been possible without Iran's outstanding drone capabilities.

An inconvenient truth of the "Pax Americana" is that it subsisted in no small part on the premise that the big boys (those enforcing it) could go unchallenged if they decided to slap a small player around. This, in a sad way, allowed the illusion that everything was fine to persist, and that "Pax Americana" would last forever. International (Western) media, and their intellectuals, were also great at building this narrative too. 

Now, thanks to technology, the facade is crumbling. The fact that a $20K-$50K Iranian drone requires a $2MM-$4MM US Patriot interceptor to be shot down changes the economic the calculus of war radically. Moreover, to learn that Iran can produce 1,000 to 10,000 Shahed 137 drones per month, while Lockheed Martin churns out around 55 monthly Patriot missiles, is another thing entirely. All this, and I haven't even talked about the full deployment of AI in self-directed, unsupervised weaponry. 

"Pax Americana" is over. International Social Capital is depleted. Alliances completely broke down, and now, no one trusts no one. The future looks a heck of a lot more unstable than it used to. If 9/11 changed the world's security landscape in a way that created a "before-and-after" for all of us, the post-"Pax Americana" future we are staring at will be even more unstable. 

In this incredibly complex and fluid backdrop, has anybody stopped to think about how is the U.S., Canada, and Mexico going to guarantee the security of certain upcoming, worldwide soccer event happening on their soil?