The world order is under pressure from a combination of political, economic, social and ecological factors, to such an extent that it is not simply weakening but is at risk of cracking, fragmenting and coming to an end. There are some who will cheer because of its many evident flaws over the past 80 years, the injustices and wars it has permitted and even fostered. But be careful what you wish for, folks. Too much of history warns us that doing away with an unjust order does not necessarily mean introducing one that is more fair. And the world order that is staggering today brought some real benefits despite its flaws.

This post is the second in a series, based on the introductory chapter to the recently released SIPRI Yearbook 2024, looking at the world order implications of some of today’s key events and trends. The series asks, What world are we shaping for ourselves in the coming decades if these trends continue unchanged? 

Doing away with an unjust order does not necessarily mean introducing one that is more fair

Definition

The discussion about whether or how the world order is or should be changing is a bit strange because it’s not clear that everybody participating in it is discussing the same thing.¹ One reason for this is because there is not a single thing that, in the parlance that is in common use by politicians and pundits in the West, is ‘the rules-based international order’. There are actually several such orders, and there are also important non-formalized norms of international conduct. A relatively optimistic take on the subject of how the world order is changing argues that it is becoming multiplex (i.e., composed of distinct, interleaved parts) – not bipolar, as in the Cold War between the USA and USSR and their respective alliances, nor unipolar as under the USA in the decade-plus after the end of the Cold War, and more complex than multipolar implies as different states have different degrees of influence over different issues and it is harder to see just one or two overall leaders.

Part of the problem here – and you can see it pretty quickly in each one of the six works if you follow the links in note 1 at the end of this piece – is that sometimes the emphasis in the discussion is on an arrangement set in place by the most powerful state (or states) for their own benefit, while sometimes the discussion is about a system of rules and norms that is meant to constrain and limit the exercise of power.

As a thought exercise, if you take this at face value and assume good intentions and high intelligence among all those participating in the debate, you would probably conclude that the reality of the world order encompasses both sides of this duality. Janus-faced, it both expresses the will of the most powerful and yet it also constrains or at least regulates the exercise of power.

In that sense if not in others, it is like domestic law, which also tends to protect the rich and powerful and uphold their interests more than it protects and upholds the poor and powerless, yet without it the poor and powerless would be even worse off.

In other words, in the dichotomy between the-world-order-expresses-power and the-world-order-constrains-power, both halves are partially true.

That said, a working definition of the world order, or at least of the topic of this series of posts, is that it is the way in which international relations are arranged through institutions, treaties, law and norms. Who it favours and how much comes next.

Rules (& norms) or power?

Beyond contested definitions based alternatively on power and law, these areas of uncertainty reveal that that duality is indeed what the discussion is really about: the relationship between the legitimacy of the rules and norms, on the one hand, and the distribution and exercise of power, on the other. Just as in domestic law, part of what is at stake is who does the system favour? And the other part is what it offers to those whom it doesn’t favour so much.

Think about power and legitimacy in today’s world. The exercise of power is generally controversial, while its distribution is always in flux. On the world stage, the distribution of power has been changing markedly in the past three decades. That is why this discussion is by no means the preserve of experts and scholars, as is shown by the engagement in it of world figures, such as, to take a few not so random examples, Presidents Lula, Putin and Xi of Brazil, Russia and China, respectively, Prime Minister Modi of India, and US Secretary of State Blinken, as well as UN Secretary-General Guterres.² 

These and other politicians and diplomats as well as commentators articulate motives and goals for change that address both legitimacy and power. Some argue for changing the rules to support changed distributions of power, such as in the debate over whether the UN Security Council should continue to be constituted to give privileges to the five permanent members). Some argue for change so as to constrain the exercise of power more tightly, such as in propositions to give the UN General Assembly more weight in decision-making. And others act in a way that implies they seek less reliance on rules and more on pure power relations, actively undermining the world order as they do so, whatever rationalisations they or their allies advance.

In the dichotomy between the-world-order-expresses-power and the-world-order-constrains-power, both halves are partially true.

The duality of power and legitimacy lies at the heart of the world order. It was constructed through the exercise of power and gives advantages to the most powerful. The right of veto in the UN Security Council, for example, was Stalin’s condition for signing up for the UN. None but the very powerful could have made that demand and got the rest to accede to it.

But even if that is how it was constructed, that is not what the world order is all about. The norms and regulations on which the legitimacy of the world order is based cover a range of issues that is historically unprecedented in its breadth. Among the most important are war and peace, trade, the natural environment, health, human rights, refugees and displaced people, migration, crime, the built environment, the digital revolution, education and cultural heritage. This is an impressive scope even if not comprehensive: gender issues, for example, are inadequately addressed in world order norms and regulations.

These are the rules that put limits on the exercise of power, that say people may not be imprisoned arbitrarily, that a war of aggression or the seizure of another state’s territory is not acceptable, that refugees must be cared for, that cooperation is the best way to address international public health challenges, and so on.

Most of the UN member states that signed up for the rules respect them most of the time, but some – especially but not exclusively among the powerful – flout them with discomfiting frequency and little consequence. And yet they remain important as is shown by the intensity of controversies that ensue when the rules get flouted as, for example, by the West over Iraq, by Russia in Ukraine, by Israel in Gaza, or by China in the South China Sea.

Origins

The world order of today took shape in the 1940s. That was a different historical era, before decolonization, when there was only one nuclear power, at a time when just 48 states recognized each other as founder members of the United Nations, and when the United Kingdom and France were still global powers, albeit rocked and damaged by the Second World War. In the eight succeeding decades, the political and strategic contours have changed fundamentally and there has been far-reaching demographic and economic change. The world’s population trebled and urbanized at almost twice that rate, while economic output increased more than four times faster than population growth. The accompanying increase in the extraction of natural resources has likewise far outpaced population growth. Human well-being has improved, although not evenly and not everywhere, but the consequence is the multifaceted ecological crisis that the world faces today. For this new epoch, the Anthropocene, it can be argued that the world needs different goals and mechanisms of rule-making and enforcement.³

Arguments that the world order is based on anachronistic assumptions, whichever aspect of anachronism is in focus, can only be strengthened by recognizing that its genetic code dates back to 1648 and the Peace of Westphalia. This was a set of three agreements – one signed in January 1648 and two in October the same year.⁴ Taken together, they ended Europe’s Thirty Years War and the century-long mayhem and chaos brought on by religious discord between rival versions of Christianity. The Westphalian order was based on a balance between differently constituted states. It was disrupted by the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars around the turn of the 19th century and restored in 1815 with modifications by the Vienna Congress and Concert of Europe. Following a deeper disruption a century later with the First World War and Russian Revolution, the League of Nations was formed. This was the first effort to generalize the European order into a world order. The League’s demise and the yet more profound disruption of the Second World War motivated a more systematic globalized projection of the European order with the formation of the United Nations. 

To identify the European origins and trajectory of the world order is by no means to criticize it. Criticisms should logically be based on its failure measured against its achievements rather than its geographic and cultural origins. Yet the world order necessarily incorporates and embodies the perspectives of a particular time and region. For some, this is, in itself, a reason for discomfort with it.

Interpreting longevity

Since the establishment of the United Nations, changes in the order through the accession of three times as many member states as were in at its creation, the accretion of additional treaties to create new responsibilities (such as to care for refugees) and limits on states (such as on what weaponry they may deploy) have all been modifications rather than fundamental change.

The longevity and resilience of the world order can be taken as supporting evidence for contrasting views about it.

Longevity could be taken to mean either that the system is working well or that it is anachronistic, reflecting things as they were, not as they are and will be. This interpretation of longevity emphasizes the need for change, regardless of the difficulties in working out its terms.

Resilience, however, implies an underlying worth, a durability based on the values embodied in the institutions of the world order; this encourages care in making change so that what is valuable is not lost.

On the third hand, taken together, longevity and resilience might encourage a considerable degree of scepticism about the likelihood of any real change happening, absent a cataclysmic event on the scale of the Second World War. Overall, the views and feelings of many opinion makers and leaders that the world order of today is deficient do not mean that it lacks all useful function.

The world order that we have known for the past eight decades is under challenge but persists.

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NOTES

1. Some useful references with different points of view can be found by clicking here, here, here, here, here and here.
2. You can find their remarks on these links: Lula, Putin in 2007 and in June 2024, Xi, Modi, Blinken and Guterres.
3. In March 2024, a committee of geologists rejected the term Anthropocene as a unit of geological time. That does not change the reality that the term captures better than any other, that the greatest impact on the natural environment today and into the future is human. Because of that, the term is almost certainly going to remain in widespread use.
4. I’ve noticed a surprising and irritating amount of inconsistency and imprecision among the most easily accessible sources about the number of treaties that constitute the Peace Westphalia. Even Britannica seems only to mention two treaties though it doesn’t actually state a number, and that is probably why Wikipedia states there were two. But, guys, there were three. The first was signed between Spain and Netherlands in January 1648. Then two were signed in October, one in Münster between the Holy Roman Empire and France (and their respective allies), and one in Osnabrück between the Holy Roman Empire and Sweden (and their respective allies). OK?!?