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The scholarly work of Odiaka Olika inspired this article. Under peer revision, I respectfully amplify the following opinion: The world order as we know it is dead. We shouldn’t mourn it. When the rules stop pretending to protect you, you protect yourself; that is reality.
A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, and protect itself from internal aggression, external economic and military aggression has very few options. The United States foreign policy did not change. Trump is doing nothing new. Check the Monroe Doctrine that asserts American dominance of the Western Hemisphere, which was often used to justify US military intervention in Latin America, the America First Doctrine used to protect American businesses, and the Alien Enemies Act invoked to deport individuals suspected of cartel connection without trial, and many more. These are old rules that predate Donald Trump. It is rather us pretending to live in denial in a fast-changing world.
International relations are often spoken about as if they are guided by fairness, cooperation, and shared rules. Granted, collectivism brings strength. However, in reality, global politics has always been driven by might and power. Laws, treaties, and institutions exist, but they usually follow power rather than restrain it. What makes the present moment unusual is not that powerful countries are acting in their own interest, but that they are no longer pretending otherwise.
Under President Donald Trump, American foreign policy has stripped away much of the language of moral obligation and replaced it with open pragmatism. The Monroe Doctrine and the Insurrection Act are not repealed laws in America. Trump is only breathing life into them.
It is a settled principle in diplomacy that the foreign policy of any country reflects the character and temperament of its leader. Presidents do not invent national interests, but they choose how honestly those interests are expressed. This is why foreign policy is rarely permanent. What one administration defends as sacred, another may ignore or discard without apology. Trump’s America did not suddenly become selfish; it simply stopped dressing power in comforting language. Future presidents may soften the tone, but the underlying reality will remain.
This reality is well captured by many scholars, including Odiaka Olika, whose work rightly observes that America’s withdrawal from multiple global institutions was not a dramatic policy shift but the end of a long-standing performance. The so-called “rules-based international order” was never neutral. It has always been shaped by those strong enough to write the rules and enforce them. What has changed is that the mask has fallen, and power is now speaking plainly and bluntly too. For doubling down on taking Greenland from Denmark, the British parliament for the first time dubbed a US president as ‘international gangster’.
To understand this moment, we must rethink how international law actually works. In theory, all states are equal. In practice, they are not. The United Nations Charter proclaims sovereign equality, yet only five countries hold veto power, and their one vote overrides the resolutions of hundreds of countries. Nigerian Afrobeat king Late Fela Kuti, in one of his popular songs, decried this imbalance where a single veto from one superpower cancels the collective voices of hundreds. This contradiction is not accidental; it reflects the truth that law in international relations bends toward power. The theory I describe as Sovereign Pragmatism explains this clearly: powerful states obey international law when it suits their interests and reinterpret or abandon it when it does not. They take their actions and justify them later.
This approach is not new. The United States never joined the International Criminal Court. China ignores binding maritime arbitration rulings. Russia invokes international law selectively while violating territorial norms as is the case with Ukraine. None of these actions collapsed the global system because the system was never built on moral consistency. It was built on managing power. Trump’s foreign policy simply made this logic explicit rather than ceremonial. For instance, when Trump says he wants Greenland for America’s strategic interest, he is not the first US president to eye having Greenland. The US has been eyeing Greenland for over a century, with attempts to purchase it dating back to 1867 when Secretary of State William H Seward considered buying it. Other presidents, like Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, also explored acquiring Greenland, but Denmark rejected the offers.
Looking ahead, the next decade will not be defined by stable alliances but by shifting alignments. Countries will move between American military dominance, Chinese economic influence, and Russian security arrangements based on immediate advantage. Loyalty will matter less than leverage. This is not chaos; it is a return to old realism under modern conditions.
China’s global infrastructure projects illustrate this clearly. Ports, railways, and loans are presented as development assistance, but they function as long-term strategic leverage. When debts cannot be repaid, sovereignty quietly erodes. Russia’s security partnerships follow a similar pattern, trading protection for access to resources. These actions are often legal on paper, yet destructive in effect. International law allows contracts, but it cannot protect states that negotiate from weakness.
This brings us to Nigeria. Nigeria’s greatest problem is not pressure from foreign powers, but the belief that it must submit to one of them. Nigeria is not poor in leverage. With over 230 million people in a world facing population decline, Nigeria holds demographic power. Its location in the Gulf of Guinea gives it maritime importance at a time when traditional global trade routes are becoming unstable. Its gas reserves, critical minerals, and cultural influence through Nollywood and Afrobeats give it economic and soft power that many countries envy.
International law supports Nigeria’s right to control these assets. The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources is well established. What Nigeria lacks is not legal protection but strategic thinking. When monetary policy follows external instructions, when security doctrine is imported wholesale, and when resources are negotiated abroad, sovereignty is not stolen—it is surrendered.
We must stop pretending, but take advantage of what we have. This is why Nigeria’s future elections are already geopolitical. Not because foreign powers will manipulate votes, but because Nigerian elites have outsourced national decision-making for decades. The state remains intact, but authority has been fragmented due to endemic corrupt leadership. This is a quieter form of partition; one achieved without redrawing borders.
History warns us where these lead. Adolf Hitler did not begin the Second World War with a full-scale invasion. He advanced step by step, testing resistance, exploiting hesitation, and normalizing violations. European powers hesitated. Others calculated. By the time action was taken, the cost was catastrophic. Today’s sovereignty assaults—economic, strategic, and political—follow a similar pattern. They succeed because resistance is delayed and unity is absent.
In this environment, Nigeria must choose strategic autonomy. Not isolation, and not blind alignment, but disciplined independence as a pathway always wide open for us at all times. Foreign powers must be treated as customers, not saviours. Energy resources must serve national development. Security must protect territory, people, and assets, not just officeholders in control of their mini armies Above all, political leadership must understand leverage. You do not beg when you possess what others desperately need.
This path demands sacrifice from the elite class—something Nigeria has rarely witnessed. Yet the alternative is worse. In the coming era, a weak Nigeria will not merely lose influence; it risks becoming a permanent proxy, a managed space rather than a sovereign actor.
The age of empires never disappeared. It changed form. Power now moves through contracts, debt, influence, and hesitation. Nigeria is not exempt from history. But history still allows choice. As President Donald Trump once bluntly stated: “A strong nation must defend its sovereignty, or it will lose it.”
At a time when Russia hesitates, China calculates, and even European allies waver as sovereignty violations continue with impunity—much like the dangerous appeasement that preceded World War II—this warning should not be dismissed as rhetoric.
The question is no longer whether Nigeria will be part of the global contest.
The question is whether it will enter it awake, or already owned.
