The article shows that (a) those who expect new global powers to rise, provoking a clash with the old one seeking to maintain its supremacy (the US), are mistaken. The US will scale back its international role, but no other power will step in to take over its functions in maintaining order....

The pandemic has made global communitarianism more necessary and more elusive than ever. One would expect, according to theories expounded by social scientists as well as B-movies, that when the people of the world face a major, devastating, external threat, they would unite to fight it....