For three decades, the ghost of the French political philosopher Montesquieu haunted the halls of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva. The Enlightenment philosopher’s famous dictum of doux commerce — the idea that trade “polishes and softens” the manners of men — was the silent engine of the era of globalisation. The logic was as elegant as it was optimistic: If we weave a web of mutual dependency, the cost of conflict becomes too high to pay. We would trade our way to a permanent, civilised peace. It was a beautiful, seductive delusion — the belief that the accountant’s ledger could finally replace the soldier’s bayonet.

But today, looking at the flurry of Trumpeted tariffs, export controls, and “Buy National” mandates, it is clear that the era of “gentle trade” has expired. States are more economically and technologically interconnected than at any point in history. Yet the very ties that bind them are increasingly perceived as sources of vulnerability rather than stability. We have reached a state of maximal interdependence coupled with minimal trust. The interdependence spawned by trade is now seen as a form of geoeconomic vulnerability, where reliance on foreign partners is seen as a strategic liability rather than a stabilising force. This tension between reliance and suspicion shapes the contours of global geopolitics and geoeconomics, producing a world order that is simultaneously integrated and fragmented. In the place of the globalised world, a more primal, dog-eat-dog protectionism has emerged. The marketplace is no longer a salon for integrating the world; it has become the front line of a zero-sum conflict. We are........

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