Member-only story
The US is the biggest threat to a ‘rules-based order’
During President Biden’s diplomatic trip to Europe, a favorite phrase of Washington wonks kept popping up: “rules-based international order.” A few days ago, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg used these words four times in a speech in which he warned of the “challenge” that “authoritarian regimes like Russia and China” pose to the “rules-based order.” During a March summit with Chinese diplomats, Secretary of State Antony Blinken touched on the same themes, saying that the “alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right and winners take all.” However, “might makes right” describes precisely the way our present international order operates.
Originating in the post-World War II era, the concept of a “rules-based international order” ostensibly extends the liberal notion of the rule of law to the community of nations. But in practice, the rules-based order that supposedly governs the global system is a façade for one determined by might — namely the political, economic and military power of the United States, which establishes rules that favor its interests, blocks those that don’t and ignores any that it finds inconvenient.
The fundamental goal of the rules-based order, embodied by the United Nations, was to prevent wars of aggression and conquest. Yet, the United States has engaged in dozens of…
