I think that Walter Russell Mead exhibits confusion in his latest Wall Street Journal column. In it he laments the “quiet disintegration”: of the rules-based international order:
Even as the global geopolitical crisis becomes more acute, the core institutions and initiatives of the American-led world order and the governments that back them are growing progressively weaker and less relevant.
He goes on to illustrate the futility of the United Nations General Assembly, the G20, and the WTO. He’s mistaken. The “rules-based international order” is and always has been a pious fantasy. What existed in the past was U. S. hegemony in which the U. S. ignored the rules while insisting that other countries comply.
The U. S. dictated the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The permanent members of the UN Security Council are the World War II Allies. The World Trade Organization and its predecessor, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), were largely created as attack vehicles against a weakeningly hegemonic United States, The G20 began as an instrument of the hegemonic United States and evolved into an attack vehicle against it.
Our notional allies in Europe like to imagine a rules-based international order that restrains the United States but are disinterested in one that promotes U. S. interests. If we wanted a rules-based international order we would feel restrained by its rules. We don’t.
All countries have national interests. The United States has national interests. France has national interests. China has national interests. Russia has national interests. Ukraine has national interests. These interests are not necessarily compatible, indeed, they are frequently incompatible as illustrated by the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. China embraced the WTO when it was in its national interests to do so and ignored it when it was not. We do the same thing. We shouldn’t be surprised or outraged at these differences.
Contrariwise, if we wish to maintain the rules-based order that we are free to ignore, we need to have an economy that supports the sort of hegemony we experienced from 1945 to 1975 or thereabouts. I don’t think we’re prepared for the policy implications of such an economy and such hegemony which is why I think that Dr. Mead’s knickers are in a twist.
The Peace of Westphalia is the closest thing to a “rules-based international orderâ€, and it was really a “rules-based western European order”. Internationally, an empire is the closest thing to a “rules-based international order”, but it is really a “rules-based imperial order”.
The US and most of the world were not signatories to any of the Westphalian treaties, and as such, most of the world does not recognise fixed borders, including the US. Even the signatories do not agree about their borders.
Hegemony is a polite way of describing the imposition of one’s will upon others, and now that it is weakening, Dr. Read and his ilk are having a temper tantrum. They are children playing dress-up, but their toys are a lot more destructive.
Like the Jabberwocky, a “rules-based international order†is nonsense, but unlike the Jabberwocky, it is not recognized as such.
“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
I think it’s a bit more complex than that. For the Europeans insistence on a rules-based international order serves as an attack vehicle against the U. S. and a strategy for staying relevant in a world that is rapidly leaving them behind. For American pundits it’s a way of fitting in with the cool kids.
The rules-based-international order is like the “pirate’s code” from the original “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie – more like guidelines.
Like the Ten Suggestions?
That’s probably a good analog.
Here’s the relevant scene from Pirates for context:
https://youtu.be/k9ojK9Q_ARE