Whatever Happened to the Rules-Based World Order?

During the twentieth century, World War II was one of those historical events —- like the Black Plague in the Middle Ages — that seemed to come close to destroying a livable, tolerable civilized world. Unlike the Black Plague, it was not physical death by impersonal microbes that threatened us. Instead, the danger was the use of violence by three nations to aggrandize power. Instead of a social contract between nations limiting permissible violence, the nations lived in a milieu much as Thomas Hobbes imagined a state of nature — only for nations, not for individual human beings. Hobbes asserted the lives of people in a state of nature without a government to protect them would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Instead, there would be a “war of all against all.” Substitute nations for individuals and the rules-based order for governments in this picture, and you will see the international environment sought after World War II.

How Western Elites Would Like to See the World Develop

In order to avoid a repetition of the disaster of World War II, Western elites and their countries began to dream of what came to be called an international rules-based order, sometimes called the liberal world order. They wanted to draw up a social contract for nations. This contract would set up a global set of rules based on political and economic liberalism that would blunt imperial ambitions. It would allow for (as much as possible) free and unfettered international trade. Since the late 1940s, it encouraged international cooperation through such organizations as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations.

The creation of the rules-based international order was driven mostly by the Western nations, reeling from the aftermath of World War II. They were motivated by a desire to promote classically liberal democracy, security cooperation, economic development, individual freedom, the rule of law, and human rights. In other words, they promoted the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment.

No organization has been more fervent in promoting the rules-based order than the Davos World Economic Forum. Populists on both the Right and the Left have viewed this gathering of the world’s elites very suspiciously. One would expect this to be true almost by definition of the word “populism.” The general problem with elites is that they tend to think they understand the world’s problems far better than anyone else. Since a country’s elites generally control its governments, the corollary is governments should be granted ever increasing power over society, particularly over the economy. Inevitably, this will raise the ire of populists.

All this has led the Davos leaders to propose the addition of other goals to those of the Age of Enlightenment. Yet, the additional rules sought by global elites are not necessarily compatible with those inspired by the Enlightenment. In order for new rules to work and to be accepted, they must actually succeed without reducing individual rights and human rights. In fact, the populists have very good reason to be suspicious of what Davos elites want. Consider the criticism from Fox News’ Jesse Waters in the video below.

You will note the elites’ assumption that man is responsible for global warming through his emissions of carbon dioxide. Yet, physics shows us carbon dioxide cannot possibly be the cause of observed global warming. Elites would reply that all respectable scientific opinion says man is the cause. Yet, that also is not the case. (See also here and here). This is a particular example of a more general explanation for the bad results of elitist policies. I often express this explanation with the following assertion.

Governments have neither the competence nor the ability to solve or ameliorate most social and economic problems.

The empirical evidence proving this assertion can be found here; the explanation for why the assertion is true can be found here and here. The basic reason the assertion is all too true is that reality, both social and physical, is entirely too complicated for any finite group of humans to comprehend. A small group of government bureaucrats might make good decisions for a small number of companies and individuals, but very bad for everyone else. The very best that government (i.e. the elites) can do is to give enough freedom to everyone and to every company to solve their own problems. Individuals and private companies are the ones closest to their own problems. Presumably, this propinquity gives them the best understanding of those problems. Also, if they make mistakes, the harm they do can be quickly corrected without any government interference. Part of giving more freedom to individuals and companies is minimizing the governments’ share of GDP, allowing non-government actors to allocate the largest possible share of national income to solve their own problems.

Needless to say, this rules-based international order was frequently challenged by authoritarian and illiberal states. The Soviet Union (later the Russian Federation), the People’s Republic of China, Iran, and North Korea come to mind. Many times these challengers were discontented with their own power and roles in the world. This would often push them to expand their borders. These are called revisionist states. Those who supported the rules-based order and who do not seek to change their borders are often called status quo states. All of the autocrats of the revisionist states have ideals antagonistic to the Age of Enlightenment.

Why the Rules-Based World Order Is Disintegrating

Over recent decades, the rules-based international civilization Western elites wanted to spread picked up many more enemies. In addition to the authoritarian states, many in the non-western world resented what they considered Western cultural imperialism. And within the West many, especially in academia, began to view Western culture and all its products as the source of most of the world’s problems. This has led to a kind of pacifism among progressive Democrats and among the elites of the West generally.

The threat posed by authoritarians is seen in two current conflicts: Russia’s war against Ukraine and Iran’s provocation of Hamas’ war against Israel. One of the most basic objectives of the rules-based order is to tie the world together in bounds of commerce. Countries who need each other for their mutual prosperity do not go to war with each other.

In fact, Putin’s war on Ukraine has greatly reduced Ukraine’s food exports, particularly to Asian and African countries. Ukraine’s share of all agricultural exports to Africa was 14% in January-October 2021, but was cut in half to 7% during the same period in 2023. The share of Ukrainian agricultural exports to Asia decreased from 19% to 12% during the concomitant periods. In this way, a war’s hardship spreads far beyond the combatants.

Iran’s threat to the rules-based order is somewhat different. Instead of being a combatant itself to enlarge its territories, it seeks to increase its influence through terrorist proxies. In a 2023 post, the Hoover Institution wrote

Iran’s actions in 2022 represented a new level of its violations of international laws and practices. The nuclear talks gradually collapsed while Iran expanded its use of advanced centrifuges and establishment of underground nuclear facilities, its stockpile of uranium enriched far beyond Tehran’s requirements and rebuffed inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Tehran now acts much like a country seeking to gradually build a nuclear weapons capability. The past year also saw multiple reports that Iran undertook operations to kill former U.S. officials, journalists, dissidents, and others in the United States and the United Kingdom. Not since the early days after 9/11 have we so seen many terrorist plots against the U.S. by a single actor. Iran’s hostage-taking continued unabated, along with its weapons shipments to proxies in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon. Iranian drones and missiles were launched in multiple attacks to produce large-scale civilian casualties in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Ukraine, as well as in sporadic attacks against U.S. forces in Syria. Finally, the world witnessed the Islamic Republic’s use of executions, torture, sexual violence, and brutality to stifle widespread peaceful domestic demonstrations sparked by women protesting the death of 22-year-old Masha Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police.

The Challenge of Iran In 2023, Norman T. Roule

The article goes on to note that the Iranian government is encouraged by the reduction of amity among the world’s great powers, and by a growing multipolarity. Cooperation for mutual defense is collapsing. The Biden Administration itself is encouraging Iranian aggression with its weak responses to Iran’s proxy war against the West.

Iran has both formed and supported allied fighting forces throughout the Middle East. Among them are both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. The primary part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) responsible for providing their allies contact, training, weaponry, and funds is the Quds Force.

After the Trump Administration was successful in brokering the Abraham Accords on September 15, 2020, it seemed likely that much of the Sunni Arab world would normalize relations with Israel. The Accords were between Israel and the Arab states of the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. Later they included a renewal of ties with Morocco. Shiite Iran considers the Abraham Accords to be a distinct threat to their power and influence in the Mideast. This is almost certainly why Iran has stimulated Hezbollah and Hamas to attack Israel.

The most direct threats to the rules-base international order are wars waged by authoritarian, revisionist states against status quo countries. The prohibition of wars that increase the power of revisionist states is the most important of those international rules. War jeopardizes free-flowing international trade and directly abrogates rules followed by nations.

Finally, one should emphasize one other factor in the disintegration of the post World War II rules-based order. That is the growing hostility of the West’s elites, particularly in academia, to the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. Those ideals are the very soul of the international rules-based order.

Is There Hope For A Return to Rules Replacing Violence?

The desire of Davos Man for a rules-based international order is not at all nefarious. In the very first paragraph of this essay, I alluded to Thomas Hobbes’ justification for the necessity of government: Life in a state of nature with no government would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” We need some rules enforced by government to protect ourselves from each other. The need for at least some rules to be followed by all nations is entirely analogous. The problem, of course, is just what rules should be chosen, and who gets to choose them. This quandary is made all the more severe by the multiplicity of beliefs among all the nations about the nature of social reality.

What can motivate most nations to band together and enforce mutually accepted international rules of conduct? The securing of national security is one of the best motives. That was the greatest motivating force for international leaders just after World War II. The growth of international trade is another. As we have seen in Russia’s war with Ukraine and Iran’s disruptions in the Mideast, war damages the international rules-based environment.

All this suggests we should keep our alliances with like-minded countries in good health. So long as revisionist nations wage war to increase their power and assets, we must wage war ourselves. For at least a time, the rules-based world order must suffer. However, for as long as the autocratic, revisionist countries hold sway, the rules-based order will never recover.

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