The modern American usage of the term “fourth estate” refers to the press as a free power, and even as a watchdog over the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the US government. Today, however, it is the watchdog that needs watching.

The 1989 essay “The End of History,” by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, has been both celebrated and maligned for its prediction that the future would unfold with centuries of comparative “boredom,” as the American-led international system had no viable challengers remaining. The Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review represents a complete repudiation of Fukuyama’s world model. But more importantly, it is the first official warning from Washington that there may be a return of great power conflicts, which were a fixture of less stable eras in modern world history. The only solution, according to the Pentagon, is to restore America’s strategic edge, which waned under the Obama administration.

Scholars disagree as to whether there exists a liberalizing global political order that has been preserved through American hegemony since World War II (often referred to as the “liberal world order”). Still, it is generally agreed upon that the US has been the dominant power in global affairs since at least the fall of the Soviet Union. With the release of the Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy, the US Department of Defense is weighing in on this debate. Specifically, it has announced that American security policy is shifting from counterterrorism in the Middle East to strategizing against rising world powers like China. The reason for this pivot, according to the Pentagon, is the need to protect the current world order from states that seek to revise it.