Requiem for Liberal International Order?

In the West, most authoritative politicians and commentators continually reaffirm a commitment to the Liberal International Order, while in the outcome documents of the major Western countries, such as the European Union, the G7, and NATO, the international order that is hoped for is a rules-based international order.

The shift in official terminology away from traditional reference to the liberal order coincided with the renunciation of some of the pillars, on which Western international policy was based after World War II, until the end of the Cold War and confrontation with the Soviet bloc. Competition between the two blocs has gradually weakened thanks to the Kremlin’s gradual acceptance of the principles of the liberal international order proposed since the beginning of World War II in the Atlantic Charter of Churchill and Roosevelt and in the Declaration of the United Nations.

Although the Soviets were also involved in creating this order at the end of the conflict – the Bretton Woods agreements and the creation of the UN – deep differences with the United States and Great Britain over the post-war settlement led to the birth of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. This determined the confrontation between the USSR and Eastern Europe, on the one hand, and the USA and Western Europe, on the other.

This meant that the liberal international order was initially established only in Western Europe and the USA, and then gradually was adopted by many countries emerging from colonial rule. However, after the shock caused by the Cuban crisis, diplomatic activity began at the initiative of the Warsaw Pact, which led to the convening of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in the early 1970s. It took place in Finland and was later approved (August 1975) as the Helsinki Act. In this document, Moscow diplomacy also aligned itself with what Fareed Zakaria, in his seminal article on illiberal democracy, called the true expression of Western constitutional liberalism spreading “throughout the world.”

This adherence of the Eastern Bloc to the international liberalism of the West contributed to the gradual evolution of the Soviet Union that led to Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika. Finally, in September 1990, a conversation between Gorbachev and President George H. Bush, during which a fully shared international order was agreed upon between the United States and the Soviet Union, marked the final end of the Cold War. This resulted in the overcoming of the partition of Germany the following month, and then, in November, a unanimous vote on Security Council Resolution 678 on the Kuwait crisis, which Bush described in his memoirs as a watershed in History.

A watershed in History: Soviet support in the Security Council for the possibility of American military intervention in the Persian Gulf confirmed perhaps the most important of the principles of the liberal international order established with the creation of the UN. This refers to the legality of the use of force in international relations, subject to mandatory authorization by the Security Council.

The Security Council could not effectively discuss and make decisions due to the veto power of its permanent members, which was exercised mainly by the United States and the Soviet Union. During the Helsinki negotiations in September 1990, the fundamental differences between the two superpowers were resolved. Gorbachev, with his assurances to Bush, then achieved full compliance with the spirit and letter of the Helsinki Act and the principles of the Liberal International Order expressed in it. The UN was given the opportunity to act effectively.

After Bush’s failed re-election, Bill Clinton’s presidency and his strategy of “democratic enlargement,” the West as a whole, while continuing to declare itself a supporter of the liberal international order, essentially adopted practices that today we might more correctly call neoliberal. This is consistent with what the New York Council of Foreign Relations chairman Richard Haass wrote in a 2017 article entitled “World Order 2.0.”

Under the neoliberal order, a policy of regime change is adopted, which clearly contradicts the provisions of the Helsinki Act on the obligation not to interfere in the internal affairs of individual countries. Since then, starting with Yugoslavia, the practice of military interventions without the approval of the UN Security Council began to take hold, which continued under subsequent presidencies.

Even if media commentaries continued to talk about the Liberal International Order as the norm for international political actions of Western countries, in fact, they gradually moved away from it. The phrase “rules-based order” has appeared in their official statements, which is more compatible with their current practices.

A few months after becoming secretary of state, Antony Blinken said on US relations with China that the Biden administration’s goal “was not… to ‘contain’ China,” but rather to maintain the so- called rules-based order and keep it from weakening by China.

China spoke out on this issue along with Russia in March 2022 in their joint statement “on deepening the global strategic coordination partnership in a new era,” reaffirming its commitment to upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and the  respect for the international law, reaffirming it as not replaceable with the rules-based order.