To those asking what will emerge in place of the rules-based international order — which has now been exposed as rigged, dysfunctional, and supportive of US hegemony — here are some thoughts.
What's clear is that US hegemony is in decline (though Trump is still creating havoc) and China's power on the world stage is growing.
In many ways, we're witnessing a great rebalancing, where the power of the West is now matched by the East. This is a positive development.
Another reason for optimism is that China takes a less hegemonic approach to building international partnerships compared to the US. This has been on display for years now, especially in China's partnerships with other Global South countries. European countries are now also starting to build fruitful partnerships with China.
While China, of course, flexes its muscles in foreign affairs, it respects the sovereignty of other nations. It does not carry out regime-change operations, assassinations, or coups. It does not impose structural adjustment programs. It has not committed genocide.
Over time, I believe international institutions and global governance will reflect a stronger Global South, with China playing a central role. And with US hegemony in decline, we're moving toward a more democratic and equitable international order.
I always wondered if liberals and experts in rules-based institutions exercised enough critical thinking to realise that the whole system is a facade. Not the high level establishment, but people who sought careers in the field. Did they truly believe it works as stated, or they knew it doesn't and simply sided with power? I suspect it is the former, because otherwise they would be aware of power and the imperialism in the system, which most actively deny.
This post shows that the so-called rules-based international order was marked by structural inequality from the very beginning. The supposedly neutral rules of the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO long served a power structure dominated by wealthy countries. What changed later was not the nature of the system, but the degree to which that reality was exposed. Trump-style naked power politics tore away the remaining façade, as the United States, growing more anxious about the erosion of its dominance, became increasingly unwilling to be constrained by rules and ever more willing to use them as instruments to constrain others. In the end, even establishment figures such as Mark Carney effectively acknowledged the system’s hypocrisy. At that point, it no longer makes sense to describe it as a genuine or effective world order. The world is moving into a harsher era of great-power competition combined with the weaponization of economic coercion, and middle powers can no longer rely on repeating old slogans to secure themselves.
In my earlier post, The Rules-Based Order Was Not Captured by China. It Was Weaponized by the United States, I pushed the argument one step further. As hegemonic pressure on the United States intensified, Washington did not merely expose the asymmetries embedded in the old order. It actively transformed institutions that still wore the universalist language of liberalism into weapons for restricting, isolating, and punishing strategic rivals. Recognizing hypocrisy is only the endpoint at the level of perception. The more important reality is what followed: the deliberate weaponization of the system itself by the United States.
Put differently, this order has not simply “collapsed.” It has evolved from a hegemonic order cloaked in pseudo-universalism into a more naked coercive order, one characterized by selective enforcement and increasingly organized around the use of finance, technology, supply chains, and market access as instruments of geopolitical discipline.
Law only works when the majority are obedient. Many in empowered positions have played a rule in facilitating the hypocrisy. We are still pretending that we are not engineering our own extinction with growth economics. There is simple legal case against growth economics that can be compiled from the scientific insights I=PAT and ecological overshoot. https://poemsforparliament.uk/legal
A succinct analysis of the break down of the rules-based-international order or the illusion of it that we lived under. The next pressing concern is what will be the future? Are we going to see the rule of jungle as coercion of economic integration or out-right open warfare? What will happen to the Global South and Small nation states with this breakdown? Even though a partial illusion, the rule-based international order provided some sort of sovereignty protection for these weak nations. Will these states survive the on-coming storm?
A thoughtful analysis that I fully endorse. The result of the death of the rules-based international order is that we apparently find ourselves in no man's land today. This isn't a major problem for those who follow the US, but what does this mean for Europe? The US apparently no longer sees Europe as a first rank partner, but Brussels isn't drawing its own conclusions. A sensible European analysis would be to first strengthen itself, align internally, break away from the US and NATO, meaning the withdrawal of the American military, including its (nuclear) weapons, and seek affiliation with Eurasia and the economically lucrative Belt & Road Project. This would create a new world order: the US with its Western Hemisphere, Eurasia under Chinese leadership, and Europe as the western "peninsula" of that vast continental shelf, with Africa potentially as a third player.
To those asking what will emerge in place of the rules-based international order — which has now been exposed as rigged, dysfunctional, and supportive of US hegemony — here are some thoughts.
What's clear is that US hegemony is in decline (though Trump is still creating havoc) and China's power on the world stage is growing.
In many ways, we're witnessing a great rebalancing, where the power of the West is now matched by the East. This is a positive development.
Another reason for optimism is that China takes a less hegemonic approach to building international partnerships compared to the US. This has been on display for years now, especially in China's partnerships with other Global South countries. European countries are now also starting to build fruitful partnerships with China.
While China, of course, flexes its muscles in foreign affairs, it respects the sovereignty of other nations. It does not carry out regime-change operations, assassinations, or coups. It does not impose structural adjustment programs. It has not committed genocide.
Over time, I believe international institutions and global governance will reflect a stronger Global South, with China playing a central role. And with US hegemony in decline, we're moving toward a more democratic and equitable international order.
I always wondered if liberals and experts in rules-based institutions exercised enough critical thinking to realise that the whole system is a facade. Not the high level establishment, but people who sought careers in the field. Did they truly believe it works as stated, or they knew it doesn't and simply sided with power? I suspect it is the former, because otherwise they would be aware of power and the imperialism in the system, which most actively deny.
The key shift isn’t that the rules-based order was hypocritical. Everyone knew that.
It’s that power no longer routes through legitimacy at all.
Institutions still exist. Treaties still exist.
They just arrive after outcomes are already set by trade chokepoints, financial rails, tech defaults.
This isn’t collapse. It’s displacement.
This post shows that the so-called rules-based international order was marked by structural inequality from the very beginning. The supposedly neutral rules of the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO long served a power structure dominated by wealthy countries. What changed later was not the nature of the system, but the degree to which that reality was exposed. Trump-style naked power politics tore away the remaining façade, as the United States, growing more anxious about the erosion of its dominance, became increasingly unwilling to be constrained by rules and ever more willing to use them as instruments to constrain others. In the end, even establishment figures such as Mark Carney effectively acknowledged the system’s hypocrisy. At that point, it no longer makes sense to describe it as a genuine or effective world order. The world is moving into a harsher era of great-power competition combined with the weaponization of economic coercion, and middle powers can no longer rely on repeating old slogans to secure themselves.
In my earlier post, The Rules-Based Order Was Not Captured by China. It Was Weaponized by the United States, I pushed the argument one step further. As hegemonic pressure on the United States intensified, Washington did not merely expose the asymmetries embedded in the old order. It actively transformed institutions that still wore the universalist language of liberalism into weapons for restricting, isolating, and punishing strategic rivals. Recognizing hypocrisy is only the endpoint at the level of perception. The more important reality is what followed: the deliberate weaponization of the system itself by the United States.
Put differently, this order has not simply “collapsed.” It has evolved from a hegemonic order cloaked in pseudo-universalism into a more naked coercive order, one characterized by selective enforcement and increasingly organized around the use of finance, technology, supply chains, and market access as instruments of geopolitical discipline.
Law only works when the majority are obedient. Many in empowered positions have played a rule in facilitating the hypocrisy. We are still pretending that we are not engineering our own extinction with growth economics. There is simple legal case against growth economics that can be compiled from the scientific insights I=PAT and ecological overshoot. https://poemsforparliament.uk/legal
What's the alternative to the liberal rules based order? State capitalism, social democracy, fascism, communism, cronyism?
I like social democracy
A succinct analysis of the break down of the rules-based-international order or the illusion of it that we lived under. The next pressing concern is what will be the future? Are we going to see the rule of jungle as coercion of economic integration or out-right open warfare? What will happen to the Global South and Small nation states with this breakdown? Even though a partial illusion, the rule-based international order provided some sort of sovereignty protection for these weak nations. Will these states survive the on-coming storm?
A thoughtful analysis that I fully endorse. The result of the death of the rules-based international order is that we apparently find ourselves in no man's land today. This isn't a major problem for those who follow the US, but what does this mean for Europe? The US apparently no longer sees Europe as a first rank partner, but Brussels isn't drawing its own conclusions. A sensible European analysis would be to first strengthen itself, align internally, break away from the US and NATO, meaning the withdrawal of the American military, including its (nuclear) weapons, and seek affiliation with Eurasia and the economically lucrative Belt & Road Project. This would create a new world order: the US with its Western Hemisphere, Eurasia under Chinese leadership, and Europe as the western "peninsula" of that vast continental shelf, with Africa potentially as a third player.