From Hegemony to Havoc:
The Silent Collapse of Shared Knowledge
It’s easy to mistake the noise of progress for its substance. We have AI models generating music and code, satellites beaming broadband into deserts, and machines designing other machines. On the surface, it feels like the world is accelerating into the future. But beneath this hum of advancement lies a quieter truth: trust is eroding, collaboration is collapsing, and the very foundation of shared knowledge that lifted humanity in the past century is crumbling. We are entering an age of strategic mistrust and epistemic fragmentation. And few are paying attention.
At the recent Aspen Security Forum, Singapore’s Foreign Minister, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, issued a calm but sobering warning. He described the world as standing in a historical interregnum, a liminal moment between one global order and whatever comes next. And like any vacuum, it invites chaos. What struck me most wasn’t his commentary on geopolitics, but his deeper insight: the collapse of multilateralism isn’t just about trade wars or military tensions. It’s about the unravelling of something even more essential, the ability of nations to learn, build, and innovate together.
The Gift and Decline of Pax Americana
For nearly eight decades, a rules-based international order enabled societies across the world , especially smaller states like Singapore , to rise out of poverty and into modernity. America, the post-war hegemon, was unusual. It didn’t behave like the victors of past empires. Instead of pillaging the vanquished, it rebuilt them. Through the Marshall Plan, the formation of the United Nations, the WTO, and the Bretton Woods institutions, the US underwrote a global system that valued openness, rule of law, and predictability.
This system wasn’t perfect. But it worked. Countries like Singapore, South Korea, and later China were able to integrate into global supply chains, attract investment, and benefit from flows of knowledge and talent. Singapore, as Dr Balakrishnan noted, is a city-state whose trade volume is three times its GDP. For us, the global system was not a philosophical position. It was an existential one.
But that era is fading. With America's share of global GDP declining from 40% in 1945 to around 26% today, and domestic politics in disarray, the American public is increasingly sceptical of its global role. Understandably, voters ask why they should continue paying to uphold a system that appears to benefit others more than themselves. It is in this environment that the US has withdrawn from treaties, questioned alliances, and imposed tariffs, even on long-time partners with free trade agreements, like Singapore.
Knowledge as Collateral Damage
What’s often missed in these discussions is how geopolitical rifts now endanger something far more delicate than trade balances: the shared pursuit of knowledge. Balakrishnan raised an alarm on this front, warning that the decoupling of scientific and technological collaboration could lead to three systemic consequences: inflation, disrupted relations, and the slowing of progress.
We should take that seriously. Over the past two centuries, scientific advancement thrived on a kind of global commons. Discoveries were published, peer-reviewed, cited, and built upon across borders. Engineers in Bangalore could iterate on breakthroughs from Boston. Medical researchers in Beijing could refine genetic insights from Sweden. This shared scientific stack has powered extraordinary gains in human health, connectivity, and industrial capacity.
Now, imagine that stack breaking in two.
With the growing US-China rift, we are already seeing this bifurcation. Export controls on advanced semiconductors, bans on research collaboration in key fields, and digital firewalls are creating parallel technological ecosystems. And the costs will be high. Redundancy replaces efficiency. Innovation slows as silos replace synergy. Worse, without mutual dependencies, mistrust grows.
History Has Shown Us This Before
This would not be the first time that closing the doors to knowledge led to regression.
During the Islamic Golden Age, Baghdad's House of Wisdom brought together texts from Greek, Persian, Indian and Syriac sources. It was an era of openness, translation, and debate, a time that gave us algebra, medical ethics, and astronomical observations that influenced Europe centuries later. When Europe rediscovered this knowledge, it sparked the Renaissance.
Contrast that with Ming China’s decision in the 15th century to end its naval expeditions and turn inward. At the time, China was the world’s most sophisticated civilisation. But its decision to sever engagement with the outside world arguably cost it centuries of technological advancement.
More recently, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union achieved early dominance in space and nuclear science but eventually fell behind. Isolated from the global scientific community, its innovation ecosystem stagnated while the West surged ahead through university partnerships, research exchange, and open publishing.
The pattern is consistent: openness fuels advancement. Isolation invites decay.
China’s Technological Ascent Is Proof of Integration, Not Autarky
Today, China is making strides in quantum communications, green energy, materials science, and manufacturing automation. But these achievements did not emerge from isolation. They are the fruits of decades of integration with global systems: Chinese students studying abroad, foreign direct investment, joint ventures with global firms, and participation in multinational research projects.
Yet in the name of strategic competition, the world risks turning back the clock. Bifurcating the tech stack may feel like containment, but it is more accurately a collective act of regression. China, for its part, remains confident but not reckless. As Dr Balakrishnan observed, China has no interest in wrecking the global system from which it has benefited the most. The challenge is to ensure that its continued rise does not come at the cost of burning bridges that the world needs to cross together.
The Mistrust Begins at Home
Perhaps the most haunting point in Dr Balakrishnan’s speech was this: “Foreign policy begins at home.”
The age of mistrust we are entering is not just geopolitical. It is psychological. It stems from within societies, particularly in the West, where political polarisation is eroding the social contracts that once underpinned liberal democracies. In the United States, the bipartisan consensus around global engagement has collapsed. Both Trump-era protectionism and the more cautious isolationism of the current administration reflect a deeper unease: the feeling that globalisation has enriched elites while hollowing out industrial heartlands.
This erosion of domestic trust is infectious. It spreads abroad like a virus. If the world’s most powerful democracy begins to view interdependence as vulnerability, it teaches others to do the same. And once mistrust becomes the organising principle of international affairs, cooperation becomes suspect, treaties become brittle, and knowledge becomes something to hoard, not to share.
Here, I must offer a personal reflection. The shift in America’s global posture and its diminishing moral authority has not occurred in a vacuum. Over the decades, the United States has increasingly aligned itself with the agendas of proxy powers such as Israel, allowing these alliances to shape its foreign policy in ways that have deeply damaged its global standing. The historic endorsement of the Balfour Declaration by Britain, with America’s eventual backing, set the stage for a century-long conflict that continues to fester. The persistent displacement, surveillance, and dehumanisation of the Palestinian people, backed by American military aid and diplomatic cover, has become emblematic of Western double standards.
This is not lost on the global South. Across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where nations continue to bear the scars of colonial legacies, such contradictions undermine any claim to moral leadership. From Iraq and Libya to Afghanistan and Gaza, wars have been waged under the banner of liberation or security, yet they have left behind fractured societies and festering resentment. Had the West genuinely shed its imperialist impulses after World War II, the multilateral system it helped create could have been a platform for justice, equity, and co-development. Instead, it too often became a mechanism for control, cloaked in the language of order. What was meant to be a foundation for peace became, in many parts of the world, a scaffold for chaos.
Southeast Asia Offers a Third Way
For countries like Singapore, this is an existential moment. Southeast Asia does not want to be forced into binary choices between the US and China. ASEAN’s model has long been one of "overlapping circles of friends", a deliberate strategy to remain engaged with all powers while preserving autonomy.
This outlook is not new. For over a millennium, Southeast Asia served as a vital maritime trading corridor connecting the civilisations of China and India. From the ancient ports of Srivijaya to the entrepôts of Malacca and later Singapore, the region thrived not on ideological conformity but on open exchange. Goods, cultures, and ideas flowed freely through the straits and archipelagos, creating a unique ecosystem of diversity and interdependence.
In that spirit, Singapore and its neighbours continue to pursue multilateral agreements like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). These frameworks are not just trade vehicles. They are insurance policies against a fractured world, modern-day extensions of Southeast Asia's historical role as a neutral and necessary conduit for cooperation.
But make no mistake: even the most agile diplomacy cannot substitute for global consensus. If the two largest economies in the world harden their rivalry into permanent separation, everyone else suffers collateral damage.
Rebuilding the Foundation
What, then, is to be done? For one, we must move away from the delusion that technological self-reliance in every domain is possible or desirable. It is not. Whether it’s AI ethics, vaccine development, or climate modelling, the world’s challenges are global and interconnected. Solutions must be as well.
Second, governments must reinvest in domestic cohesion. That means repairing the frayed social fabric through better education, inclusive industrial policy, and robust social safety nets. Singapore’s success offers a compelling model. From the outset, the city-state made it a national priority to ensure that every citizen had access to quality education, stable employment, affordable housing, and accessible healthcare. These pillars formed the backbone of Singapore’s development strategy, enabling not only economic competitiveness but also social trust and resilience.
Education was never treated as an afterthought; it was seen as the engine of nation-building. Merit-based progression, combined with strong public investment in vocational and tertiary institutions, helped equip its workforce with future-ready skills. Public housing, provided through the Housing and Development Board (HDB), ensured that over 80% of Singaporeans had a stake in the nation. Universal healthcare was delivered pragmatically through schemes like Medisave and MediShield. Together, these measures formed a compact between government and citizen, one that prioritised dignity, opportunity, and stability.
When citizens feel protected at home, they are less likely to fear cooperation abroad. This is why Singapore can stand on the world stage with confidence, advocating for free trade and multilateralism while preserving internal cohesion.
Third, we must protect and modernise the global institutions that make knowledge-sharing possible. That includes open-access publishing, academic collaboration platforms, and global scientific bodies. It also means resisting the weaponisation of interdependence, where every exchange is treated as a potential threat.
For centuries, knowledge has been the lifeblood of every successful civilisation. The Islamic, Chinese, and Indian civilisations rose to prominence not only through conquest or trade but through their ability to absorb, preserve, and expand human understanding. The translation movements of Baghdad, the scholarly centres of Nalanda and Taxila, and the meticulous astronomical records of the Chinese courts were all grounded in a belief that learning was not just a means to power, but a moral imperative.
Today, that legacy is under threat. Institutions that once enabled the free flow of research across borders are now being weaponised or dismantled under the guise of national security. The open exchange of scientific discovery, which helped eradicate diseases and lift millions out of poverty, is being replaced by secrecy, suspicion, and duplication. If we forget that knowledge has always been a shared human endeavour, we risk repeating the darkest chapters of our past, where ignorance, not wisdom, set the terms of engagement.
To preserve the gains of the past and ensure the breakthroughs of tomorrow, we must re-establish knowledge as a global commons. We must remind ourselves that innovation thrives not in isolation, but in openness.
Conclusion: A Quiet Collapse or a Collective Rebuild?
We live in strange times. The world is richer in information, yet poorer in understanding. We are surrounded by smart machines but divided by dumb politics. And while our tools advance, our trust erodes.
Dr Balakrishnan ended his talk with a quiet plea: that nations rediscover their commitment to progress through cooperation. That we take a step back from confrontation and reinvest in the fragile architecture that allows societies to learn from one another. Because the alternative is not stability. It is havoc.
The collapse of shared knowledge does not arrive with the sound of explosions. It happens silently, through severed connections, missed opportunities, and quiet exits from the room. And by the time we realise what we’ve lost, it may already be too late.
Yet, throughout history, civilisations that endured and flourished were those rooted in ethical worldviews. Islamic civilisation, in particular, laid down principles that shaped holistic understandings of justice, responsibility, and knowledge. The Qur’an’s first revealed word, “Iqra” (read), underscores that revelation itself began with a command to seek knowledge. Islamic teachings prioritised learning as a sacred duty, not a luxury. This worldview influenced not only Muslim lands but also sparked transmission into Europe through Andalusia, catalysing the Renaissance.
Islamic economic principles also offer relevant wisdom: that wealth should circulate, knowledge should uplift communities, and power must be tempered by trust and accountability. In an era obsessed with dominance and disruption, these foundational ethics remind us that cooperation, not conquest, has always produced lasting prosperity.
We still have time to choose the harder, humbler path of collaboration, a path deeply familiar to those who remember that the pursuit of knowledge, when anchored in moral clarity, builds civilisations. The question is: will we?
About the Author
Farhad Omar is a cybersecurity professional, former educator, and independent commentator on geopolitics, Islamic thought, and economic justice. Drawing on decades of experience across Southeast Asia and Australia, he writes to bridge the past with the present, technology with ethics, and policy with principle.