Tweets To Tectonics Nato Wanes Global South Rises

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 It began, again, with a tweet. US President Donald Trump, from his digital podium, declared that Iran and Israel had “come to him” asking for peace, promising a future of “LOVE, PEACE AND PROSPERITY.”
The post went viral. Commentators scrambled. Headlines reframed. But beneath the performance lay the more troubling reality: real peace is nowhere in sight and never was.
Just hours after this so-called peace overture, Israel unleashed another wave of airstrikes. Yet we already know Israel’s operations are routinely underwritten by US logistics and satellite support.
Emir Research has long highlighted this conceptual bifurcation within the US, now increasingly visible even to the most unscrupulous observers.
On one side, a political class desperate to appear in control; on the other, a war economy that no longer answers to democratic oversight. These bombings expose not only Israeli aggression but the extent to which Washington itself has become operationally fragmented.
But perhaps the most revealing element is not the gap between Trump’s rhetoric and reality, but the possibility that this gap is intentional. What if Trump’s apparent incoherence is not a miscalculation, but a method?
Nato flagHis declarations of peace are routinely followed by orchestrated escalation. Not because he controls outcomes, but because he wants the world to see that he doesn’t.
The deeper message is strategic: that America cannot guarantee anything, because it cannot even govern itself. Treaties signed today are disavowed tomorrow. Not that we did not know this before, but with Trump, the exposure becomes grotesque.
Trump’s theatre, then, serves a darker purpose: to collapse the very perception of US reliability. His actions, whether on foreign entanglements, tariffs, or climate withdrawal, teach the world that American leadership is structurally incoherent. The chaos is not accidental. It is a form of exposure.
And this is not lost on foreign capitals. Even long-time allies now quietly ask: if the American state cannot ensure internal coherence, how can it offer global stability? If its wars continue without presidential oversight, and its treaties collapse with each administration, what does it mean to be aligned with Washington?
It is in this disillusionment that real geopolitical recalibration begins.
Nato clings to relevance as world shifts
While bombs fell and tweets spiralled, the Nato summit convened with all the theatre of importance but none of the coherence. Once a cornerstone of postwar Western security, the alliance now resembles a museum exhibit: elaborate, well-lit, but out of time.
South Korea’s conspicuous absence was not a matter of disengagement. As reported by the South China Morning Post, it reflected a pragmatic diplomatic recalibration.
Across the Global South, Nato is viewed increasingly as a relic: obsessed with two percent defence spending while the world burns from climate shocks, cyber threats, pandemics, and migratory collapse.
Even Nato members struggle to meet their goals. Reuters reports that only a few are on track for the two percent target by 2025. The rest offer rhetoric, not readiness.
Yet, rather than recalibrating, Nato has now endorsed a new goal of five percent defence spending by 2035. This shift reflects more about worldview than actual threat. Many in the Global South are asking: containment of what, exactly? Is Nato defending the world, or defending its own relevance?
The problem is not just strategic. It is existential. Nato’s core logic - big-state militarism, fixed enemies, endless deterrence - is ill-suited to a world of decentralised threats and non-linear crises. The alliance now projects the image of an inward-looking bloc, preaching escalation and loyalty to itself while the world quietly moves on.
British aircraft carrierAcross Latin America, Africa, and Asia, new coalitions are forming around infrastructure, energy resilience, digital sovereignty, and climate action. These are not military alliances, but post-Western lifelines. If Nato wants to remain relevant, it must shift from fortress to forum. So far, the signs are unconvincing.
Global South embracing sovereignty
Something deeper is unfolding behind the theatrics of war and summits: a realignment not of blocs but of meaning. Across countries, the question is no longer whom to side with, but whether the old story still holds at all.
Take Iran. Its administration is probably far from universally embraced, even domestically. But its refusal to collapse under sabotage, sanctions, and psychological warfare has turned it into a symbol of dignity under siege.
From South Africa to Indonesia, Pakistan to Latin America, solidarity with Iran stems not from ideology but from memory. It comes from a shared experience of being coerced, demonised, dehumanised, and denied narrative parity.
Across Africa, Southeast Asia, and parts of Latin America, political leaders and civil society voices increasingly point to a common view. Iran is not being punished for aggression but for independence.
The pattern is familiar: covert interference, sanctions, media vilification. These pressures mirror what many postcolonial nations face for refusing to align with dominant powers. What the Global South is registering is not just military capability, but a declaration of strategic sovereignty.
IranIn this climate, Malaysia has found its own voice. It does not project force or fund proxy wars. What it offers is narrative clarity. Through consistent diplomatic positioning, Malaysia has argued that peace without accountability is a false peace.
Israel’s nuclear ambiguity, Western impunity, and the systematic erasure of Palestinian dignity are no longer seen as unfortunate contradictions. They are becoming untenable pillars of a collapsing order.
Rewriting rules, rejecting the West
In this emerging terrain, narrative is the new front line. The Global South is no longer waiting for permission. It is reframing what dignity, deterrence, and diplomacy mean in a world unmoored from Western centrality.
What we are witnessing is not just a contest of weapons, but a reckoning of words. The old order relied on language - “rules-based,” “deterrence,” “democracy,” “self-defence” - to mask contradiction. Today, those words no longer conceal. They expose.
The Nato summit, meant to project strength, only magnified irrelevance. Its metrics - two percent defence spending, rapid response forces, collective security - even if not false, are out of sync with the world’s pulse.
Climate collapse doesn’t ask for battalions. Nor does a broken food system. Nor a digitally displaced generation.
As for the US, the facade of unity has never looked thinner. It is no longer a singular actor, but a split organism: one hand tweeting peace, the other fuelling war. This is not strategy. It is entropy.
And in the margins of this collapse, a new world is taking shape. Multipolar networks are forming not through grand treaties but through quiet refusal. These actors refuse to be lectured, intimidated, or ignored.
If a new system emerges, it will not be born in Cold War summits or Nato declarations. It will be built on the courage of coherence, on the dignity of those once silenced who are now speaking in full.
Iran has shown that deterrence can be quiet, precise, and unyielding. Malaysia has shown that influence can reside in truth, not tonnage. The Global South, long treated as an audience, is now writing its own script. - Mkini
RAIS HUSSIN is the Founder of EMIR Research, a think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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