The Myth of a Rules-Based World Order: Power as the True Arbiter
A common refrain in contemporary discourse laments the decline of the so-called "rules-based world order," suggesting that such an order once stood on firm and impartial ground. However, this perspective overlooks a fundamental truth: rules require consistent and reliable enforcement to be meaningful. In domestic political systems, the state typically monopolizes legitimate force to uphold laws. In contrast, the international system of sovereign states exists in a state of anarchy, lacking any comparable overarching authority with independent coercive power.
The United Nations and the Paralysis of Collective Action
The United Nations, often cited as the cornerstone of global governance, possesses no autonomous military or enforcement capability. Its authority and agency are entirely derived from its member states, whose national interests frequently collide, leading to political paralysis. The addition of veto powers for the permanent members of the Security Council—making some states "more equal than others"—further complicates matters. This reality transforms the ideal of a neutral global government into more of an aspirational goal than a functional structural framework.
What exists instead is the tangible reality of dominance. Powerful nations impose outcomes when they possess the capability to do so, often cloaking their actions in the language of international law, stability, or humanitarian intervention. Rules effectively function only when major global powers align behind them. When such alignment fractures, enforcement mechanisms dissolve, revealing the underlying power dynamics.
A Personal Testimony: When Rules Failed to Protect
Every time I hear the phrase "rules-based world order," my mind returns to the early hours of May 10 last year. From my study, I heard the distant explosions of Indian missiles. My daughters slept peacefully in their rooms, unaware of the danger, while my wife moved through our home in anxious silence. We both understood, with chilling clarity, how easily a confrontation between nuclear-armed neighbors could escalate beyond any point of recall.
We have lived our lives, but our children have not. The prospect of them inheriting a nuclear wasteland is not a theoretical abstraction; it is a visceral fear. In that moment of crisis, I waited for the rules-based world order to intervene and provide protection. It did not appear. What ultimately mattered were the preparedness and deterrence of our own armed forces, our nation's close strategic friendship with China, and the unpredictable but decisive role of President Trump's tweet diplomacy, which helped de-escalate tensions at a critical juncture. I remain grateful for these factors. The abstract rules-based order was conspicuously absent among the entities that made a tangible difference.
Historical Precedents: Power Over Procedure
If personal experience is dismissed as mere anecdote, history provides sterner and more systematic examples. The 2003 invasion of Iraq proceeded without explicit and clear authorization from the United Nations Security Council. NATO's military intervention in Libya in 2011 significantly exceeded its initial mandate under UN resolutions. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was an unapologetic exercise of raw force. In the ongoing conflict in Syria, various foreign interventions have unfolded under elastic and often contested legal justifications. In each case, power determined the outcomes; legal rationales were frequently crafted or invoked afterward to provide a veneer of legitimacy.
This is not to claim that international rules do not exist. Treaties are signed, institutions convene, and diplomatic protocols are observed. However, rules without the backing of power are merely appeals or suggestions. Conversely, rules that are backed by power inevitably reflect the interests and priorities of those who wield that power. What is often described as a "rules-based world order" is not a constitutional framework standing impartially above nation-states. It is, in essence, a hierarchy of power expressed through procedural and legalistic language.
The Central Myth: Equality Before the Law
The prevailing myth is not that rules are written—they are. The myth is the belief that these rules bind all nations equally, independent of their relative power and influence. When the interests of powerful states converge, rules appear firm and the order seems stable. When those interests diverge or conflict, the rules often evaporate or are simply ignored. This dynamic does not represent an order that transcends dominance; it is dominance itself speaking the language of order and procedure.
Power is not a static commodity fixed in one geographical or political location. If it were, the world might still be governed by the successors of Alexander the Great. Instead, dominance mutates, fragments, consolidates, and reappears in altered forms throughout history. Societies tend to elevate certain historical moments as normative benchmarks of a just order while dismissing others as deviations or anomalies. This is where storytelling and narrative construction become crucial.
The Emperor's New Clothes: Narratives of Legitimacy
When the underlying reality is one of naked power, emperors rarely appear unclothed. They are draped in the robes of respected institutions, wrapped in the parchment of international charters, and adorned with carefully curated procedures. The fabric is called international law, global consensus, or legitimacy. However, the elaborate tailoring does not change the fundamental nature of the body beneath. What often passes for international order is, in many respects, the emperor's new clothes—an illusion maintained by shared belief and narrative.
With significant cultural power at one's command, supported by an army of historians, intellectuals, artists, and storytellers aligned with a particular vision, even national preference can be elevated into universal principle. Over time, self-serving narratives harden into accepted global norms. What serves the interests of dominant powers is skillfully recast as what sustains international order and stability for all.
The Current Restructuring: A Shift in Power
The restructuring of global dominance we are witnessing today is not a novel phenomenon in history. What is novel is the profound discomfort experienced by those who were formed within, and benefited from, the previous configuration of power. These are the actors whose narratives once defined global legitimacy and who still retain considerable influence. Their alarm at the shifting landscape does not, in itself, invalidate the shift. Power realigns over time, and conceptions of legitimacy typically follow in its wake.
At such critical junctures, appeals to emotion and fear tend to multiply. We are told that the world will unravel into chaos if the old order—conveniently aligned with certain entrenched interests—is not preserved. What we are seldom asked is whether that old order faithfully preserved our interests, or the interests of the global majority. If we strip away the philosophical grandeur from concepts like Hegel's "cunning of reason," removing its historicist arc and faith in inevitable progression, what remains is far less elevated: not the unfolding of World Spirit, but the calculated self-preservation of powerful actors. Emotive language is often deployed strategically to disguise underlying strategic interests.
Diversion and Selective Outrage: The Epstein Case and Beyond
This dynamic is on stark display in contemporary media cycles. In recent days, resuscitated stories about Jeffrey Epstein have resurfaced in public discourse. The details are undeniably disturbing, and media coverage ensures that public attention remains fixed on the most lurid and sensational elements. However, spectacle often functions as a diversion. When scandal dominates the headlines, deeper and more systemic questions about networks of influence, privilege, and structural impunity tend to recede from view.
To believe that Epstein's proximity to immense wealth and political authority was explained solely by personal depravity, or alternatively by espionage intrigue, is to oversimplify what was clearly a dense and interconnected ecosystem of global elites. Powerful individuals naturally gather because proximity to power consolidates and amplifies influence. Scandal satisfies public outrage and demands for accountability, but it does not adequately explain the structural cohesion that allows such systems to persist. The urgent question is not merely the pathology of one individual, but the underlying architecture that granted him access, protection, and durability. That architecture is fundamentally about power preserving itself.
Furthermore, the abuse of children is tragically not confined to a single scandal or geography. It occurs in private homes and within public institutions worldwide. For over two years, children in Gaza have endured life under relentless bombardment. In the United Kingdom, grooming gang cases have been a profound embarrassment and a source of shame for my diaspora community and for the British justice system itself. In India, Dalit children endure systemic and structural abuse that rarely commands sustained international outrage or intervention.
The Hierarchy of Global Outrage
The critical question is not whether these different horrors are directly comparable—each stands on its own considerable moral weight. The question is why some tragedies become sustained global obsessions, dominating media cycles and diplomatic agendas, while others fade into the background noise of suffering. Who shapes this hierarchy of outrage? Is it shaped by the storytellers who control global narratives, or by your own direct observation and moral compass? Selective amplification by powerful media and political actors preserves an image of moral consistency without forcing a confrontation with the full and unequal distribution of global suffering. It also spares us the uncomfortable but necessary question: where is the vaunted rules-based world order when all of this happens?
Conclusion: Navigating a World of Shifting Power
In summary, it is prudent to beware of two pervasive assertions. First, the claim that the old international order served your interests more faithfully or justly than whatever configuration may replace it. Second, the notion that the present global turbulence is merely the whim of one leader or one political faction. Structural geopolitical shifts reflect deeper realignments of economic, military, and cultural power that rarely reverse themselves entirely.
When President Biden succeeded President Trump after his first term, many observers anticipated a dramatic rupture in foreign policy. What followed, in most strategic domains, was significant continuity with adjustments only at the margins. Personalities and administrations change; underlying power structures and national interests exhibit remarkable endurance. The lesson this teaches is neither comforting nor particularly dramatic: you are ultimately on your own, as societies and nations have always been throughout history. And if rules exist, they will be continually rewritten and reinterpreted by those who command the prevailing balance of power at any given time.
International order does not simply disappear into a vacuum of chaos. It is replaced by a new configuration of power and influence. There is no vacuum where order collapses; there is only a transfer of gravity—a shift in where power resides and how it is exercised. Recognizing this reality is the first step toward a more clear-eyed and pragmatic engagement with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.
