At the start of 2026, the United States is again at the center of global debates — but not as an abstract “superpower,” rather as a country whose concrete actions affect the security, economy and political identity of other states. Donald Trump’s second presidency, the announced course to withdraw from dozens of international organizations, a forceful operation against Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, and a hard line on Iran and the Middle East have forced many capitals to reassess their assumptions about Washington. Saudi Arabia, Australia and Russia react to the same U.S. decisions but see different things in them — from a historic window of opportunity to a threat to the global order.
For the Saudi elite, today’s America is simultaneously the main guarantor of regional balance and a partner with whom tough bargaining is necessary. In Australia the U.S. is still described as a “necessary but increasingly unpredictable anchor” of the Indo‑Pacific security architecture; editorial pieces more often draw a line between an American turn to unilateralism and the risks this poses to AUKUS and the joint containment of China. In the Russian information space a completely different angle dominates: the U.S. is portrayed as a country that has returned to overt imperialism, “breaking” UN institutions, the norm of sovereignty and the familiar collective security system.(ru.wikipedia.org)
The most heated reaction in all three countries was provoked by the January decision of the Trump administration to begin an immediate withdrawal of the U.S. from dozens of international organizations, including the UN climate structure and a number of specialized agencies. In Russia this event is interpreted as a logical continuation of the “Trump–Vance doctrine,” which, according to the Russian section “U.S. Foreign Policy,” is characterized as a course toward imperialism and expansionism.(ru.wikipedia.org) Commentators in Kommersant and on television emphasize that leaving 66 organizations — from UNESCO to UN population and climate funds — shows that Washington is no longer willing to play by common rules and instead seeks to impose its conditions twice over, relying on military and financial power. In a piece summarizing Chatham House’s assessment, it is stressed that U.S. abandonment of multilateral diplomacy deprives even its allies of predictability and pushes the world toward a set of “hard blocs” instead of universal norms.(ru.wikipedia.org)
The tone in the Saudi press is different: the U.S. withdrawal from climate and humanitarian structures is viewed more as a tactical maneuver than as a final break with multilateralism. On Arabic platforms close to the authorities, emphasis is placed on Saudi Arabia’s ability to strengthen its own presence in the UN and specialized agencies by taking advantage of the resulting influence vacuum, while maintaining a strategic alliance with Washington in defense and high technology. For Riyadh, this is an opportunity to act not as the “junior partner of the U.S.” but as a self-sufficient pole that can, in climate negotiations for example, balance American hardness and the demands of developing countries. This more pragmatic approach relies on a long-established cultural and educational foundation: many Saudi ministers are graduates of American universities, and local analysts often remind readers that “America’s withdrawal from institutions does not mean America’s withdrawal from the region.”(ru.wikipedia.org)
The Australian perspective, reflected in analytical columns in ABC and major newspapers, is far more anxious. There it is emphasized that for middle powers that cannot set global rules alone, the erosion of U.S. multilateral structures is a blow to the very foundations of their security and foreign policy. Australian internationalists link the American move at the UN to a long‑term trend in Washington: from the climate deal to the WTO, the U.S. has shown a preference for bilateral bargaining and tariff threats over slow but common procedures. This is directly tied to the development of AUKUS: the more unilateral and “edgy” the U.S. appears in other areas, the more intense the internal debate in Australia about whether the alliance makes Canberra excessively dependent on Washington’s political fluctuations.
A second shared nerve is the administration’s shift from “proxy wars” to demonstrative pinpoint operations, above all the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026. The Russian reaction to this operation is sharply negative and principled: analytical pieces citing Chatham House stress that this is not simply a change of government in one country but an undermining of a basic principle of international law — sovereignty. Russian commentators, from pro‑state to moderately opposition outlets, agree that the precedent of U.S. “extraterritorial justice” makes any government deemed “undesirable” by Washington vulnerable. Hence the direct parallels with Cold War–era operations and the thesis that today’s America “has returned to the policy of gunboats.”(ru.wikipedia.org)
In the Saudi discussion about Venezuela and Maduro there is almost no emotional condemnation: the topic is presented through the prism of lessons for regional policy. Commentators in pan‑Arab outlets oriented toward the Gulf note that the operation in Venezuela demonstrates U.S. readiness to move to direct action when it believes red lines have been crossed — whether that’s threats to its citizens, energy flows or allies. Experts discuss where such “red lines” lie in the Middle East and how to avoid crossing them. It is noted, however, that the level of U.S. coordination with several Latin American governments and Venezuelan opposition groups is very different from the situation in the Arab world, and Riyadh is unlikely to allow a scenario in which Washington would act as independently in its immediate neighborhood.
Australian analysts view the Maduro case through the lens of regional stability in the Pacific. Expert commentary draws parallels between the Venezuelan operation and hypothetical scenarios around disputed territories or authoritarian regimes in Asia. For Canberra the main question is less the legitimacy of the forceful action and more its consequences: if the U.S. begins to normalize pinpoint operations to “export justice,” this could push China and other major players to mirror such steps in their own “zones of interest.” Such “legalized arbitrariness by great powers” is seen as something Australia has historically tried to restrain through international law, not encourage.
A third common theme across all three countries is the U.S. hard line on Iran and the wider Middle Eastern security knot. In the Russian information space the familiar image is used to describe the current American course on Iran and its nuclear program: the U.S. as a force playing on the brink of a major war to preserve dominance in the region. Reports and analysis stress that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff at the Israeli‑American Council conference set out four tough demands for Tehran: restrictions on enrichment, reductions in missile arsenals, elimination of existing stocks of enriched uranium and an end to support for proxy forces.(anna-news.info) For Russian commentators this confirms that Washington seeks not compromise but Iranian capitulation: any negotiations are viewed as a cover for pressure.
The Saudi picture is more complex and internally contradictory. On one hand, the U.S. hard line on Iran is perceived as a long‑awaited confirmation that Washington is prepared to address the threats Riyadh sees coming from Tehran, from missiles to Yemeni Houthis. In Arab columns drawing on leaks from Washington meetings, Witkoff and the Trump team are presented as more “decisive” compared with the Biden administration, which was inclined to return to the nuclear deal framework. On the other hand, caution is growing: Saudi analysts emphasize that escalation around Iran under a “deal of the century” logic in Washington might not account for the long‑term interests of regional states. The experience of previous decades is recalled, when the U.S. war in Iraq and sanctions on Iran shifted balances of power but did not always favor stability.
For Australia the Iran dossier is interesting not for its own sake but as an indicator of how willing the U.S. is to divert resources from the Indo‑Pacific. Analysts note that every new Middle Eastern flare‑up that Washington becomes involved in, even indirectly, reduces its ability to concentrate on containing China, which has been proclaimed a strategic priority. Experts are already asking: if the U.S. is tied up in confrontation with Iran and managing the fallout from the Venezuela operation, will it have the political will and military resources for a major crisis in the Taiwan Strait?
Finally, a separate strand of reaction concerns U.S. attempts to expand its influence in the Arctic and around Greenland, which in the Russian discourse is described as an attempt to “redraw the map of the North Atlantic” and create a new sphere of American control. Russian reviews recall that the American administration even considered forceful scenarios, although Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly emphasized the priority of diplomacy and the possibility of purchasing territory from Denmark. European exercises “Arctic Endurance” and Washington’s threat to impose 10 percent, and then 25 percent, tariffs on imports from participating countries starting February 1, 2026, are interpreted as “trade coercion” to force acceptance of American terms.(ru.wikipedia.org) Against this background the thesis grows in Moscow that the U.S. is turning the Arctic into yet another theater of pressure on both rivals and allies.
Australian authors view the Arctic episode through the prism of international maritime law: if the United States openly uses tariffs and the threat of revising allied agreements to advance territorial interests, this raises the question of how it will behave in the southern Pacific when disputes around maritime boundaries intensify. At the same time Australian analysts acknowledge that they themselves depend on American guarantees of freedom of navigation and therefore must navigate between criticizing Washington’s methods and understanding their strategic logic.
Against this backdrop the Saudi assessment looks surprisingly pragmatic. In Riyadh the Arctic story is seen primarily as a signal about how the Trump administration thinks about negotiations: an initial maximal demand, tough rhetoric and a demonstrative threat of sanctions, followed by a rollback to a more “reasonable” compromise, as happened when Trump announced in Davos on January 21 that a military option regarding Greenland was not being considered and a basis for agreement with the NATO secretary‑general had been reached.(ru.wikipedia.org) Saudi commentators draw direct parallels with past bargaining over OPEC+ production quotas and with the reconfiguration of relations between Washington and the kingdom under Biden, when tough public rhetoric in the end combined with carefully managed behind‑the‑scenes dialogue.
Across all three countries another common thread is skepticism about the long‑term sustainability of the current American course. Russian analysts, relying on Western sources, note that even among the U.S.’s traditional allies — in Europe, in expert centers like Chatham House — there is a growing sense that Washington “breaks the rules faster than it can propose new ones.”(ru.wikipedia.org) In Australia this motif is voiced more gently but is no less worrying: editorial articles express the thought that allies are less confident than ever that U.S. domestic political cycles will not undo long‑standing defense and economic arrangements. In Saudi Arabia, where the elite traditionally adapts to changes in Washington administrations, the theme of “diversification” — from diplomatic contacts with China to trying to play a more active role in OPEC and the Islamic world independently of American priorities — is heard more and more.
What in Washington is often presented as “restoring American strength” and “returning to deals in the U.S. interest” looks much more contradictory outside the country. In Riyadh this is seen as both a window of opportunity and a risk, with efforts to use the American hard line to strengthen Saudi regional agency. In Canberra it is a source of strategic uncertainty forcing a reassessment of basic assumptions about the durability of American leadership. In Moscow it confirms a long‑constructed narrative of the U.S. as a power breaking the old order and thereby accelerating the formation of alternative centers of power.
One thing is common to all three capitals: America still sets the agenda, but less and less often the rules of the game. It is precisely this divergence between power and normative legitimacy that today attracts the main attention and criticism outside the United States, even from those who still rely on American support for their own security.
