In just two days the world, it seems, has become a much less certain, scarier place; the global order, less stable, more tense, teetering in places on the brink of an abyss.
The election of Donald Trump as president-elect of the US, leader of the only global super-power, chief of staff of the most powerful military machine the world has ever known, has injected what Donald Rumsfeld once mystifyingly termed a whole lot of "known unknowns ... things that we now know we don't know" into strategic thinking and planning across the world.
Like it or not, President Trump becomes the global agenda-setter in chief and yet, after a year of campaigning, we can still only guess at most of his foreign policy positions, represented in debate largely as only headlines, undeveloped talking points.
His only contribution, for example, to a military strategy debate was to complain repeatedly – idiotically – that IS had been prewarned of the attack on Mosul. Its leaders were thus free to escape, the new Clausewitz revealed.
We know that, over the years, he has been consistent in three broad "America first" themes: strong suspicion of US alliances like Nato, convinced her partners are taking the US for a ride; economic nationalism and opposition to free trade deals, favouring the use of tariffs to curb access to US markets; and a repeatedly expressed affection for autocratic leaders like Vladimir Putin and Recip Erdogan and for their methods.
How such broad prejudices will play into action on real issues is largely unclear, although it appears from his speeches Trump’s instincts are pushing him to radical reappraisals and undermining of US strategy and leadership in most of the world’s major points of friction.
A repudiation of US commitments to the Paris accord on global change? A repudiation of all or part of the Iran nuclear agreement? Opposition to two major US trade agreements with the Pacific Rim and the EU, and tariffs of up to 45 per cent on Chinese products going into the US?
A dilution of commitments automatically to defend Nato members and other allies against attack and a break with Syrian rebels to ally with Russia and the Assad regime? A cosying up with Putin? Opposition to a two-state solution in Palestine and a moving of the US embassy to Jerusalem ?
Many states and foreign policy analysts worry that even Trump's hints on these issues may prompt China, Iran and, particularly, Putin's Russia – in Europe and Syria – to begin to test the new limits.
If the US deterrent is seen as unreliable, will allies like South Korea begin to think that they too need their own nuclear weapons? If the US weakens its commitment to free trade and bilateral alliances in Asia, will China step in to fill the gap? This election has injected a troubling new, destabilising dynamic of uncertainty and brinkmanship into world politics.