The Unmanaged World: On the Collective Rot That Has Led Us to the Brink

5 minutes read time.

In the immediate, terrified aftermath of September 11, 2001, a singular, unifying narrative emerged in the Western world: a story of resolve, of alliances, of a commitment to build a global apparatus of intelligence and security that would ensure such a day would never happen again. There was a sense of shared purpose, a vow to “never forget” and never again be caught blind. Twenty-four years later, that narrative lies in ruins, a forgotten relic of a more coherent time. Today, the world is not managed; it is adrift in a sea of chaos, rudderless and taking on water from all sides. The uncomfortable truth is that this dangerous state of affairs is not the fault of any one villain, but a systemic failure, a collective rot for which we all bear some measure of blame.

The decay begins at the very heart of the American empire. The U.S. State Department, the institution designed to be the nation’s eyes and ears, is being systematically lobotomized. An alarming memo from the American Foreign Service Association recently warned its own diplomats that they are operating in “uncharted territory.” “The environment facing the Foreign Service today is unlike anything we’ve seen,” the email stated, warning that offering “less-than-positive analysis or unwelcome recommendations” could get them recalled from their posts. This is no longer an unspoken pressure; it is official policy. The department’s new criteria for promotion now lists “fidelity” at the top, above knowledge or skill, demanding diplomats “zealously” execute policy and resolve any uncertainty on the side of loyalty to the chain of command. “What we’re seeing in the diplomatic corps right now is fear,” said John Dinkelman, the union’s president. The irony is staggering: after spending trillions to prevent another 9/11, the administration is ensuring the next crisis will arrive unseen, because seeing it would be politically inconvenient. The threat is no longer a failure to “connect the dots”; it’s an official policy of erasing the dots altogether.

While the American system decays from within, its allies are forced to confront the moral vacuum. In the United Kingdom, the government was recently forced to fire its ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson, after newly revealed emails showed him advising the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein on how to challenge his conviction for soliciting a child for prostitution. “I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened,” Mandelson wrote to Epstein in 2008. “You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release.” Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had defended his appointee just a day earlier, was forced into a humiliating U-turn by the damning evidence. The act of firing a high-profile figure, however embarrassing, demonstrated a flicker of a moral red line, a benchmark of accountability.

This stands in stark, damning contrast to the situation in the United States, where the recently unearthed emails of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell reveal a vast, sophisticated criminal enterprise deeply enmeshed with the highest levels of American society. The emails are a ledger of elite depravity, with Maxwell coolly advising Epstein on which specific sex crime to plead guilty to in order to minimize his sentence. They reveal a $1.8 million spreadsheet of gifts and payments, a tool of control mixing luxury watches for powerful enablers with hush money for victims and their families, with Maxwell’s initials on over 250 of the entries. This was a system of active, criminal malevolence, protected for years by a class of powerful people who saw no evil because it was beneficial not to. The systemic failure of every institution that was supposed to stop them is a perfect, horrifying illustration of the decline.

This chaos is not being challenged; it is being enabled by a political opposition that has ceased to function. As a recent, brutal analysis in The Hill detailed, the Democratic party is a “discombobulated” mess, a “family of cockroaches… blasted by a can of Raid.” Trapped in a state of post-traumatic paralysis from the last election, the party is incapable of formulating a coherent message beyond “Trump is bad.” It is a party at war with itself, with former Vice President Kamala Harris now publicly calling former President Biden’s decision to run for re-election “recklessness.” It is a party so lost in navel-gazing that it commissions memos on whether to use the word “heuristic.” The final, devastating admission from a prominent donor—”The Democrats can’t win on their own. Republicans will have to beat themselves”—is a stunning confession of impotence. There is no check, no balance, no credible alternative being presented to the American people.

The tragic result of this comprehensive failure of leadership was on full display this week. An incursion of Russian drones into Poland, a NATO member, should have been a moment of alliance strength and clarity. Instead, it became a perfect illustration of the unmanaged world. As The Atlantic noted, the response was a “multinational failure.” The European allies, accustomed to decades of American leadership, seemed weak and unprepared, downplaying the incident to avoid the “ugly spectacle of seeking American assistance that will not be forthcoming.” And the American leadership was simply absent. President Felonious Punk’s reaction was an ambiguous and bizarre “Here we go!”, a statement utterly devoid of the gravity the moment required. This abdication of duty has forced a terrifying realization upon our allies: they can no longer count on the United States. The security of the West, the article concludes, may now rely more on the courage of Ukraine than on the “competency and trustworthiness” of America.

This is the world we have built in the twenty-four years since the towers fell. A world where expertise is punished, where corruption is protected, where the opposition is paralyzed, and where the alliances that were meant to keep us safe are crumbling from the rot at their very core. The chaos is not an external force acting upon us; it is a reflection of our own collective failure. There is no one coming to save us. We are all on our own.