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I'd argue that the "rules-based world order" as most people perceive it never really existed. Some will say that it existed for a brief moment in the 90s-2000s. Back then, most countries played nice with the international treaties even if there were no penalties for noncompliance, right? No - it just appeared that way. The 90s and 2000s were a unipolar world, the peak of the American Empire, and America made it eminently clear what would happen if you didn't get in line. If you're a small irrelevant country you would comply with the Treaty on Migratory Slugs or the Convention on Widgets not because of any written penalties, but because to not comply would be to reject the single world power and bear its wrath.

Now we're back to the state of the world as it has always been - multipolar - and it has once more become obvious that things only matter when backed up by force, leverage, and incentives. Look at things with teeth behind them - NATO borders, export controls and ASML, artificial islands in the South China Sea, control of Hong Kong, Russia in Syria or any of the other treaties with military bases. There are papers and laws and declarations on both sides of all of those things, but real-world control always follows force, leverage and incentives.

▲ aguaviva 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Some will say that it existed for a brief moment in the 90s-2000s.

So were the Nuremberg Trials not an instance of the RBWO?

(And all the UN mediations in e.g. Palestine, Korea, etc. from its very founding)

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sofixa 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

The UN mediation and general work in Palestine was objectively a failure.

Korea... it preserved South Korea's dictator in power, which allowed for a modern democratic and prosperous South Korea to happen. Back then it was little more than protecting the US-backed dictator against the Soviets-backed one. Both were pretty terrible and murderous.

	▲	aguaviva 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		In regard to Korea -- it was also about the principle of maintaining recognized borders, and their involiability. The UN was also instrumental in bringing the conflict to an end (along with Stalin's death and the general state of exhaustion on both sides -- but nonetheless, it was instrumental). And yes, they were both awful dictatorships at the time (and the South would continue to be, for decades to come) -- but's also not like there isn't a considerable difference between the two societies, now, generations later. Palestine - many failures, but there've also been many important resolutions that have kept the conflict (at least somewhat) framed in terms of the RBWO and the rights of the region's indigenous inhabitants. We also have the Geneva Conventions, etc. So in sum - yes, many failures, but on balance I see the glass as more half-full than half-empty, on this issue.

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owenversteeg 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The Nuremberg Trials were backed by the most force the world had ever known! And even then, the Allies wiped their ass with the rules (that they mostly made up ex post facto) and grabbed any Nazis that were useful and plenty that were not. Even putting aside all the Paperclip scientists, who absolutely knew what they were involved with, the US took plenty of SS officers - Otto von Bolschwing, Klaus Barbie, Alois Brunner, etc. Everyone violated their own “rules” left and right and occasionally, if they could be bothered, made up justifications later. This is not a controversial view: in fact the contemporary British opinion was that you can’t make up laws ex post facto and the Nazis should just be executed. The Soviets anticipated a show trial and their “judges” did nothing before phoning Moscow first. The Nuremberg trials were the 1940s legal equivalent of Calvinball.

To the mediators, I’m unsure why that would be an example. We’ve had mediators for a very long time and UN mediation is only the latest flavor of that.

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wqaatwt 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Nuremberg Trials

They were effectively arbitrary show trials.

I mean a tiny proportion of nazi war criminals were ever prosecuted and the (covertly pro-nazi) West German government pardoned pretty much everyone who weren’t executed in a handful of years.

Also the Soviets (and even the Allies) continued doing whatever they wanted with no consequences.

Of course at least establishing a clear precedent was a huge achievement.

	▲	aguaviva 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Of course at least establishing a clear precedent was a huge achievement. Glass half-full, is what I'm saying.

▲ DeepSeaTortoise 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> I'd argue that the "rules-based world order" as most people perceive it never really existed. Some will say that it existed for a brief moment in the 90s-2000s. Back then, most countries played nice with the international treaties even if there were no penalties for noncompliance

The utter disrespect for the CFE treaty during that period is exactly what got us the Ukraine war right now.

▲ aguaviva 4 days ago | parent [-]

No, Putin's decision to launch the full-scale invasion in 2022 is what "got us" the war in Ukraine right now.

None of his claimed grievances in regard to the CFE Treaty amount to casus belli, by any rational metric. And they certainly weren't the core of what ultimately moved him to make that decision. They were just another part of his giant smokescreen, basically.

As his Deputy Foreign Minister put the matter, quite succinctly:

   Bondarev also recalled that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov screamed at US officials, including First Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, stating that ”[Russia] needs Ukraine” and that Russia will not ”go anywhere without Ukraine” during a dinner amidst the bilateral US-Russian strategic stability talks in Geneva on January 10, 2022.[67] Bondarev added that Rybakov vulgarly demanded that the US delegation ”get out with [their] belongings [to the 1997 borders]” as US officials called for negotiations.

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/weakness-lethal-wh...