The foundation of what is widely considered as “world order” – the sovereignty of a country over its territory and the prohibition on other countries intervening in its internal affairs – were laid in the Westphalia Treaty in 1648. Thereafter, it evolved through wars, international trade, and diplomacy, with significant milestones in the Hague (1899, 1907) and Geneva (1945) Conventions.
The League of Nations was established after World War I with the intention of preventing such horrors from ever occurring again.
World War II exposed the league’s weakness and led to it being replaced with the UN and the International Court of Justice, which were both equipped with the means to enforce order on rogue countries. While numerous instances challenged these institutions during the last 80 years, most people continued to believe in the existence of a stable world order, backed up by an accepted legal system.
However, this world order was not intended to apply equally to all countries. Wars involving countries holding a veto power in the UN Security Council (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.) were not settled by the UN but rather through direct negotiations (often, arms-twisting) between the parties involved.
As long as wars took place in the Middle East, Africa, and other remote locations, the perception that a world order exists has, more or less, persisted. Even when it failed – as it happened when the UN withdrew its forces from the Egypt-Israel border following threats by then-Egyptian president Abdel Nasser, a move that led to the 1967 war – it was far enough from the comfort zone of the Western world, whose members continued to uphold their commitments to that order.
Stability under siege
However, a series of recent events have rattled this perception of stability. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the war that followed have brought the instability right to the doorstep of Western Europe, and a sequence of moves by President Donald Trump during the last year have further shaken the image of a stable world order.
The abduction of President Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, the demand that Denmark forgo its sovereignty over Greenland and hand it over to the US, the establishment of the Peace Council as a substitute for the UN in handling the situation in Gaza, and most recently – the military threats against Iran and the de facto blockade over Cuba – seem to erase the last remaining shreds of belief in the existence of a world order.
The speech delivered by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Davos last month, along with the rejection of Trump’s invitation to join the Peace Council by the leaders of Canada, the UK, France, and Germany, represents the resistance of the liberal-progressive camp to accept the fact that the world order, in which they believed so dearly, has collapsed.
But many others realize that it has always been an illusion.
Faced with ruthless bullies like Putin, who holds the largest nuclear arsenal in the world; Xi Jinping, who is determined to annex Taiwan and is building the force to implement it; Ayatollah Khamenei, who is eager to spread radical Islam around the world while draining his nation’s resources to build nuclear bombs; and Kim Jong Un, who already possesses such power, the Western world must position its own bullish version to confront them.
Otherwise, it simply won’t survive. Trump fits that description – he understands that attempts to appease these adversaries will repeat Chamberlain’s shameful courting of Hitler (1938) and that applying sanctions without accompanying them with effective military threats will not yield the desired outcome (as was demonstrated through decades of futile sanctions on North Korea).
The template of world order that was set in place after WWII has exhausted itself, and an old-new one is now being formed – one in which stronger parties impose their will over weaker ones. Let’s hope we won’t have to go through a WWIII before this new world order settles.
The writer is an emeritus professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, where he has served in various leadership positions. He also serves as a member of the Board and as a strategic consultant to some companies and organizations.