Don’t Fall for the Myth of the ‘Brittle’ Strongman

If there was still any doubt that we live in an age of strongmen, it was snuffed out on the night of Jan. 4, when one strongman seized another, in his Venezuelan lair, and flew him to the US. Donald Trump has declared that he is now “ultimately” in charge of Venezuela, and his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, poured scorn on idle talk about “international niceties,” proclaiming that we live in a world “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

Which raises another question: How long will this new world last? Will the strongmen burn themselves out and the rules-based global order reassert itself? Or are we in for the long haul? Liberals like to approach this problem with the help of a paradox: Strongman regimes are much weaker than they appear, and democratic regimes much stronger. Strongmen may take history by the scruff of the neck, but their regimes are “brittle.” Liberal leaders may dither and dawdle, but they have hidden strengths. Strong is weak and weak is strong: We just need to wait until this underlying logic plays itself out.