La fin d'un monde (The end of a world) - Pierre Haski

Can the West adapt to a world it no longer dominates? This is probably one of the main questions raised by Pierre Haski’s La fin d’un monde. Based on several decades of reporting across Europe, Africa and Asia, Haski looks back at a world he has seen changing and explores the emergence of a new international order, in which Western powers can no longer consider themselves as dominant.

Pierre Haski is a French journalist who has spent a large part of his career covering international affairs. A former foreign correspondent for Libération, notably in South Africa and China, he later co-founded Rue89. His experience abroad gives a particular dimension to the book. Haski does not only analyze geopolitical changes from a distance. He regularly comes back to places he visited, people he met and events he witnessed during his career.

The End of Western Dominance

The “end of a world” announced in the title should not necessarily be understood as the end of the West itself. Haski rather describes the end of an international order in which Western countries, and particularly the United States and its allies, had an exceptional capacity to influence world affairs.

Africa is a good example. France’s declining influence on the continent is part of a larger rebalancing of power. But Haski also asks whether this retreat could represent an opportunity to redefine relations that are still influenced by the colonial and post-colonial past.

At the same time, new centers of power are challenging an international architecture largely built under Western influence. The expansion of the BRICS and the development of organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization show that non-Western powers also want to develop their own frameworks for international cooperation.

This does not mean that a new coherent order is replacing the previous one. What we see instead is a world in which Western dominance is no longer evident.

China and the New Balance of Power

China has an important place in the book. Haski spent several years there as a correspondent and witnessed part of its transformation into a major economic and geopolitical power.

For years, China developed its influence through trade, investments and infrastructure, particularly in Africa. At the same time, its integration into the global economy created a strong economic interdependence with Western countries.

The evolution of the relationship with the United States is probably the best example. The rapprochement initiated under Richard Nixon and continued under Jimmy Carter opened the way to increasingly important economic relations. Washington and Beijing became deeply interconnected. But economic integration did not prevent strategic rivalry.

China has since adopted a more assertive position internationally while strengthening political control at home. The treatment of the Uyghurs, growing tensions with Western democracies and, of course, Taiwan all illustrate how much the relationship has changed.

For a long time, Western countries expected China’s economic integration to be followed by a political opening. It did not happen.

Europe: A Power Still in Search of Itself

This changing world also raises an uncomfortable question for Europeans: what role can Europe actually play?

The European Union is an economic and regulatory power. Turning this weight into geopolitical influence has proved much more difficult. Haski even comes back to the old idea of the “United States of Europe”, which takes another meaning when seen from today's geopolitical situation.

Europe benefited considerably from the international order established after the Second World War. As this order becomes more fragile, Europeans have to think again about their capacity to defend their interests and to act by themselves when necessary.

This is one of the important questions raised by the book. European integration has created considerable economic and political weight. But does Europe have the means, and above all the political willingness, to become a geopolitical power corresponding to this weight?

A More Fragmented World

Ukraine, the Middle East and the consequences of the war on terror provide other examples of how much the international environment has changed.

The Ukrainian case is striking. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons present on its territory. With the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom gave assurances concerning, among other things, Ukraine's sovereignty and existing borders. Russia's later aggression against Ukraine showed the limits of these assurances.

Haski also looks at the growing importance of what we commonly call the “Global South”. This is important because many of these countries do not necessarily look at current international crises through the same historical and political perspective as Europeans or Americans.

The world that emerges from the book is therefore difficult to reduce to a confrontation between the West and its adversaries. There are more actors, more competing interests and different visions of what the international order should be.

Reading Haski from a Transatlantic Perspective

This is also where La fin d’un monde becomes particularly interesting for Atlantic Perspectives.

If Western countries can no longer define the international agenda as they once did, Europe and North America have to reconsider their place in this new environment. Losing a dominant position does not mean that the West is disappearing. But it certainly changes the conditions in which transatlantic cooperation takes place.

One of the strengths of Haski’s book is that he connects these transformations to his own experience. China’s rise, France’s changing relationship with Africa, Europe’s difficulties in becoming a geopolitical power and the growing influence of non-Western countries could easily be treated as completely separate subjects. Here, they progressively become different parts of the same story.

This brings us back to the title. Something is indeed ending. But the West itself. What seems to be ending is rather the world in which Western predominance could be taken for granted.

This distinction matters when looking at the transatlantic relationship. The historical, cultural, economic and political connections between Europe and North America do not suddenly disappear because their relative weight in the world decreases.

The historical, cultural, economic and political connections between Europe and North America do not suddenly disappear because their relative weight in the world decreases.

This leaves one central question: if the world in which the transatlantic alliance developed is coming to an end, how can this alliance adapt and remain a driving force in the international order that is now emerging?

Bibliographic reference

Pierre Haski, La fin d’un monde : Une histoire de notre temps, Éditions Stock, 2025.