The Mule of International Relations: State Birth, State Death, and the Future that Trump Made

Abstract In this article, I forecast potential changes in international order following a transformative second Trump presidency. I take a structural approach centered on two crucial post-1945 international norms: territorial integrity and self-determination. I show how the evolving interpretation of these norms has shaped the global population of states and yielded a pattern of state proliferation since World War II. I then forecast what a future Trump-inflected international order would look like if the norms were abandoned, and states adopted a more transactional, power-based practice with respect to territory, conquest, and secession. My analysis relies on several assumptions, most notably that Trump is uniquely positioned to create this future—that he is, adopting a term from science fiction, the Mule of international relations. I predict a change toward bigger but fewer states—an age of consolidation.