The Rules-Based Order Is Dead. Good.
The rules-based order was a polite fiction based in a fundamental misunderstanding of contemporary geopolitics.
In his first year in office, Donald Trump has declared a desire to annex Canada. He has repeatedly mulled invading Greenland. He has launched strikes on Iran and Venezuela and endorsed a new Monroe Doctrine for the Americas. He has dispatched his Vice President and Secretary of Defense to excoriate Europe and cozy up to Russia. He has pivoted away from free trade and towards mercantilism and ever-shifting tariffs. According to many commentators, the rules-based order that has been the object of American foreign policy for decades is under the most serious assault in its history—an assault led by its creator. The rules-based order has guaranteed world security and prosperity, we are told, and it is the responsibility of any reasonable person to defend that order and rebuild it after Trump is gone.
None of this is true. The rules-based order is not a strategic concept that has guided American policy since 1945. The rules-based order is a recent invention that emerged during the War on Terror. The rules-based order is a fatally flawed construct that contained basic tensions that Donald Trump has merely brought to a head. If we are to forge a new global order that can stand against a new age of imperialism, we need to consign the rules-based order to the trash. …
Continue reading this article by Samantha Hancox-Li, “The Rules-Based Order Is Dead. Good.,” here: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-delusion-of-a-rules-based-order-is-dead/