The ‘rules-based international order’ has a distinctly hollow ring

But cast an eye across the globe right now and there’s every reason for having this nagging, unsettling sense that something serious is about to give on the wider geopolitical front in a way not seen for decades.

As we stare into the abyss of all-out war in the Middle East, it’s a sobering thought that the carnage currently witnessed there is only one of three major flashpoints rapidly pushing the world to its most dangerous moment since the Cold War.

The Middle East aside, there is Russia’s war in Ukraine, the biggest in Europe since the Second World War, and in Asia that third flashpoint continues to shape up alarmingly with North Korea’s increasingly bellicose stance and China’s pursuit of economic dominance while adopting a threatening military posture over Taiwan.

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I don’t know about you, but all this talk of “red lines”, that should not be crossed, or the importance of a “rules-based international order” has an increasingly hollow ring about it.

Writing a few months ago, former chief of MI6 and UK ambassador to the UN John Sawers hit the nail on the head, when he described the crisis unfolding in the Middle East as “a mix of high strategy and low politics.”

What Sawers was saying, is that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is quite simply prepared to escalate tensions in the region rather than seeking to calm them.

In other words, it serves Netanyahu’s interests by entrenching his political leadership in Jerusalem on the one hand while taking the opportunity to deal a neutralising blow to Israel’s enemies on the other.

In Netanyahu’s case, the crossing of red lines has long since ceased to matter as has the remotest adherence to any notion of a rules-based order. That Israel has become the pariah state – that it now undoubtedly is – doesn’t bother the Israeli leader or his ultranationalist government henchmen one iota.

Behind the smokescreen of Israel “has a right to defend itself,” the reality is that Netanyahu’s government operates on a “might is right,” basis. That’s how things are right now and have been for quite a while.

(Image: PA)

Throughout that time, Israel has taken its own cue from its most powerful ally, the US.

For despite claims to the contrary, Washington has long been as selective as any other country about when it does or does not abide by the international norms and rules that it expects of others.

As outlined at a conference some years ago at the Chatham House Royal Institute of International Affairs, the danger here is obvious.

In other words, by itself not adhering to such norms or rules, the US has effectively opened a space for other countries to pursue a “might is right” approach when it comes to their own foreign policy ambitions.

That space I would suggest is getting bigger all the time and with it a pattern developing whereby countries across the world, say to hell with a rules based order, we’ll do it our own way.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s contested claims over islands in the South China and East China Seas are but two examples of this shift to “might is right”.

Regional powers too in the Middle East from Iran to Saudi Arabia, wary after the Iraq war experience and taking security interests into their own hands, is yet another example.

Other instances have until now gone comparatively unnoticed, North Korea being a case in point as to what many analysts identify as a country signalling a greater willingness to risk war. 

Ever since the breakdown of the 2019 summit between Kim Jong Un and then US president Donald Trump, the North Korean dictator has pursued a greater expansion of his country’s nuclear arsenal, sweeping aside international concerns and objections.

Which brings me neatly, though worryingly, to that other potentially pivotal factor in this erosion of a rules-based international order and continuing move towards the dangerous moment in which the world now finds itself. I’m talking of course about the prospect in a few weeks time, that Trump is once again elected US president.

Last time around between 2016 and 2020 Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal, World Health Organisation and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He also undermined Nato and the World Trade Organisation and insulted key allies all the while cosying up to staunch opponents of the rules-based order like Russian president Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.

No doubt were he to be back in the White House after November 5, Trump will double down on his past performance, crushing any chance of opening dialogue with Tehran, giving Netanyahu more of what he wants and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy less of the support he is desperately seeking right now.

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Whether one agrees or disagrees with Trump adopting such policies on these pressing and pivotal issues, only the most naive or foolish could fail to recognise that it will make the world an even more dangerous place than it already is.

Writing in the New Statesman earlier this year, Jerome Roos, LSE Fellow in International Political Economy, argued that it was time the West stopped using the “rules-based” moniker given that it’s a “vague, hypocritical mantra, designed for a US-dominated world that no longer exists”, and “is harming international law”.

His point is well made, as is his case that what’s needed now instead is an upgrading of the multilateral UN framework, to enable the capacity to protect humanitarian law while addressing legitimate security concerns.

“If this means that an Israeli prime minister, a Russian president and a few Western leaders will need to be carried off to The Hague to stand trial for war crimes, that would be a small price to pay for peace and justice to prevail,” concluded Roos.

Again, I find myself in agreement, for a profound change in the global balance of forces is moving the world inexorably in a perilous direction right now.

It’s time for a serious rethink and to bring all the diplomatic skill and acuity to bear in finding a new way for that international order to be fairly and equitably maintained before it’s too late.