This article examines the quiet but profound implications of the erosion of U.S.-led hegemony for small and vulnerable states of the New South. While the post-1945 international order was never egalitarian, it offered predictability: power was organized through law, and sovereignty for weaker states rested less on justice than on procedural stability. Davos 2026 marked a turning point in the public acknowledgment of that system’s unraveling. Statements by leading Western figures revealed not a revolt against American power, but a growing recognition that the United States is increasingly retreating from the obligations that once distinguished hegemony from dominance. As rules give way to discretion, and institutions to transactional bargaining, the capacity of states to navigate global disorder is becoming sharply unequal.
The article argues that this shift is existential for small states—particularly in the Middle East and North Africa—whose sovereignty depends almost entirely on international law and multilateral institutions. Unlike middle powers, they lack buffers, leverage, and visibility; their vulnerability rarely translates into voice. Climate change, debt distress, and security dependence deepen this asymmetry, making legal obligation—not power—their primary shield. Far from idealism, international law functions for these states as the infrastructure of survival. The weakening or bypassing of multilateral rules thus constitutes a systemic stress test: not of global morality, but of global stability. If the last line of international law collapses, the resulting order will not be more realistic—it will be more coercive, exclusionary, and ultimately less durable.