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The Big Picture brings together a range of PS commentaries to give readers a comprehensive understanding of topics in the news – and the deeper issues driving the news. The Big Question features concise contributor analysis and predictions on timely topics.
How the West Was Lost
Like Ernest Hemingway's description of going bankrupt, history can be said to progress "gradually, then suddenly." For many observers, that sequence captures the West’s denouement in the age of Donald Trump.
In this Big Picture, Javier Solana regards this month's disastrous G7 summit in Quebec as clear evidence that the West is in crisis. But Jim O'Neill points out that even if the summit had gone well, the G7's exclusion of major economies such as China makes it an irrelevant artifact of a bygone era.
Joschka Fischer would agree on both counts, noting that while Trump has accelerated the global power realignment toward the Asia-Pacific, he is not its ultimate cause. And Dani Rodrik reminds Western liberal democrats that many of their problems stem from too much liberalism and too little democracy.
