(1) Most countries do not actually have a military. Instead, most countries outsource their security to the US (most common), to Russia (like Belarus), or to China (like North Korea, partially). Iran is unusual in that they're going it largely alone. They're also unusual in that they actually appear to be winning. And if Iran does manage to drive the US out of not just Afghanistan and Iraq, but the entire Middle East, they'll have unfortunately undermined the idea that America can or will provide any security guarantees at all. (2) So, with the withdrawal of the American Empire, every country is going to need a new military. Some countries will "build their own." The ones most likely to go nuclear are Japan and Turkey. Maybe also Germany, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, and Poland. They'll do so both for defense and to guarantee an energy supply now that Hormuz isn't stable. Thus, the Iran war will unfortunately obviate non-proliferation. Most other countries will not build their own militaries. They'll simply do what's necessary to align with the new regional hegemon. That new hegemon will likely be China in East and Southeast Asia, Russia in North Asia and Eastern Europe, and Iran in West Asia. India has a tough situation in South Asia due to Pakistan. MAGA America will probably refocus on Latin America. And Newsom's Democrats will likely align with China, as Carney's Canadians have already done. (3) But what about every group in the world that's not running a country? What about every company and community? They'll need to think about a world where the US military has withdrawn, and isn't there for them. Is there any way to preserve something that looks like the rules-based order without the former guarantor of those rules? (a) In the physical world, these companies and communities will have to find a country that has either built their own security, as described above, or is aligned with one that has. And abide by whatever new rules they set. From the standpoint purely of tech, dozens of countries are now surprisingly permissive, opening up new special economic zones and digital nomad visas. (b) In the digital world, a partial answer is the code-based order, protected by encryption rather than weapons. Like the handoff from the British to the Americans, can we hand some of what America did off to the Internet? Crypto is furthest along here. The anti-government strain within American libertarianism, the Ron Paul strain that says you can't trust the government, well...crypto simply applies that to all of the US government, including the parts run by Republicans, including the dollar that backs the US military. Crypto does not trust the plan. After all, the US has >$175T in compounding debt, and it's financially going to zero, economically doomed just like the USSR, albeit from Keynesianism rather than Communism. Elon is our best guy and couldn't fix it with DOGE. As he said, he did his best. (4) The closest modern analog to the end of the US empire may be the end of the USSR's empire. Just like the Soviet Union became Russia, the USA is becoming America. Troops are being pulled back from around the world, it's becoming a "republic, not an empire", and everyone has to figure it out for themselves. Now, many wars did erupt in the aftermath of Soviet withdrawal, like Chechnya and the Tajikistani civil war. But it's not like every single place fell into war. Estonia didn't, Poland didn't. The Czechs and Slovaks had the Velvet Divorce. Countries long under the Soviets worked out local security arrangements between themselves. That's what's happening now as the American Empire withdraws from the world. Everyone is figuring it out for themselves. IN SUMMARY (a) You're correct that a country needs a military, but the world is losing the US military, so they'll build their own or align with a country that has one. (b) You're correct that the US military historically protected the rules-based order, but in many ways it's abandoning that order, while much of Eurasia is actually going further in the direction of free trade, and the Internet is exporting global rule-of-law via rule-of-code. (c) You're correct that US military withdrawal will likely result in chaos in parts of the world, like the USSR's military withdrawal did, but I don't think it results in chaos in all of the world, anymore than the USSR's withdrawal did. (d) Don't take it from me, though. The 2025 US National Security Strategy said that elites "overestimated America's ability" and that "permanent American domination of the entire world" is not in the best interests of the US. In other words, they've already announced that the world is multipolar, that the unipolar moment is over, that US will no longer pay any price and bear any burdern. So everyone will need to figure out security after the American empire leaves, just as they had to figure out local security arrangements after the British, French, and Soviet empires left. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf(Balaji)