“The United States and its allies were so dominant in the years after the Cold War that this was an era almost without precedent in the history of international relations,” says Brands, the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at SAIS’ Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs.

But many came to see those years as the new normal: The huge threat of totalitarian communism had disappeared, and liberal democracy had prevailed. Maybe all wasn’t right with the world, but so many wrongs were gone that it seemed like it had become a much safer place ... forever.

Why does it seem so dangerous now? Because, not surprisingly, that dominance did not last.

“During the 1990s, the primary pre-occupation of U.S. policymakers was humanitarian crises and nuclear proliferation,” Brands says. “In the 2000s, it was those two plus terrorism. Since 2008, it’s been all of those plus a return to great power competition. The result is we’re getting all types of instability and rivalry that are leading to a number of different conflicts all at once in all major geopolitical arenas.”

Brands points out that the United States emerged from the Cold War with such world economic dominance that it accounted for nearly 25 percent of global GDP in 1994 and an even larger share of global military power.

And he wants you to know that the U.S. is still the world’s dominant power—by far. But there is no doubt that in what he terms the post-post-Cold War era, there has been a gradual but unmistakable erosion of U.S. and Western primacy. That’s led to a return of great power competition, a revival of global ideological struggle, and the empowerment of what he calls “the agents of international strife and disorder.”

The rise of China, not just economically but also militarily, is evident. That nation is asserting itself in the South China Sea in ways that would have been unthinkable 25 years ago. Authoritarian regimes, of the type that were supposed to disappear along with the Cold War, have returned with a literal vengeance. Putin’s Russia, in particular, has shown its willingness to project its power, both with its neighbors (Georgia and Ukraine) and allies further afield: Assad’s Syria.

One of the reasons for the rise of authoritarians is that they promise stability in a time of chaos. “The world has gone through a period of extremely disorienting change, in part due to globalization,” Brands says. “People do look for the sense of cohesion that an authoritarian regime can provide.

“But the other thing that’s happened is that authoritarian regimes got smarter,” Brands says. “They took note of the rise of liberal democracy and refined their own tools of popular control and oppression. And they went on the offensive, promoting themselves both at home and abroad. You can see that with the Russian interference in elections in Europe and in our own.”

All of this apparent chaos does not make Brands nostalgic for the Cold War. “I don’t think the Cold War is something to look back on with fondness,” he says. “The dangers were severe.”

Brands says that the current situation is not the result of blunders by U.S. leaders.

“I actually give U.S. policymakers pretty good grades during the post-Cold War era,” Brands says. “If we had not done things like maintain extended alliances, we would have had much worse instability much sooner. The expansion of NATO, for instance, was the right thing to do.”

What he does find dangerous is that today’s confusing international scene causes many to endorse retreating from involvement in the world. The election of President Donald Trump and his neoisolationist policies can be seen as a move in that direction, though the midterm results may well be a course correction.

Mary Sarotte, who specializes in trans-Atlantic relations as the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at SAIS, agrees: “I think the European leaders were looking for a total repudiation of Trump in the midterms and were disappointed not to see that. But they also saw some things they liked, such as the Democrats getting more votes nationwide.

“So they are still holding their breath,” she says. “They can take four years of Trump, but not four years and a day. His re-election would be a clear sign that the trans-Atlantic relationship as we know it is breaking down—and the results of that could be terrible. It’s a very risky moment.”

Brands emphasizes the dangers of a U.S. withdrawal from engagement with the rest of the world.

“As messy as the world is, it’s going to be a heck of a lot messier if the U.S. is not involved,” he says. “A lot of what we do is not producing good outcomes but preventing bad outcomes. One of the reasons Europe has not relapsed into feverish instability and violent conflict is that the U.S. has been there providing security. The same is true in Asia.

“It really is dangerous if we look at the world and say, ‘That looks really messy. Why bother?’ Because things would get a lot worse in a hurry if we are not there. The last time the international order collapsed was in 1939, and too many people have forgotten that.”