At the end of the 2025, TABNAK reached out to Charles Taliaferro an emeritus professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Faithful Research, and a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy to get familiar with his viewpoints about the last year global developments.
Following is the full text of the interview:
In general, what was the most important event in 2025 from your point of view?
The return of Donald Trump to the United States Presidency. Certainly this led to huge consequences with int United States, from cutting support for the sciences, threats to the free press and academic freedom, aggressive anti-immigration, climate change denial, culling from the military and government any dissent, pardoning those who launched an insurrection to undermine a free election, but it has led to global issues: cutting aid to those people with needs (famine relief), military action against Iran and Venezuela, aiding Israel's attacks on Palestinians, global trade war (impacting Europe, Asia, North and South America), rewarding Russian aggression in the Ukraine, damaging allegiance to NATO,m threatening Canada, Panama, and Greenland.
In the political, security, and military fields, if you were to identify the most significant event of 2025, which one would you highlight and why?
The world is less safe today with President Donald Trump. How can the USA condemn Russia seeking to take over the Ukraine or China Taiwan or condemn piracy in international waters, when the USA is threatening to take over Greenland and Panama and is capturing Venezuelan ships in international waters?
Considering current trends in the international system, will countries move more toward cooperation or toward competition and conflict? In other words, will the nature of the future international order be more cooperative, or should we expect greater potential for conflict?
I am afraid to say that unless Trump has a major change of direction, I think chaos and conflict is in the future. Perhaps India and Pakistan might seek an enduring peace, perhaps Russia and the Ukraine will reach some settlement. It seems profoundly unlikely, but perhaps terrorism will abait. These are my prayers, not predictions.
If the year 2025 offers a lesson for 2026, what would that lesson be?
I hope the lesson will be that bullying may achieve short term goals, but the great lesson of history is that, in time, such imperial ambitions have a limited life-span, even if that lasts as long as the Roman or Napoleonic or British empires.
