A new “Rules Based International Order”

Two Sets of Rules in International Relations

After WWII when the smoke was clearing from Europe, east and west, from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, from Japan, China, the Philippines and the rest of the Pacific countries, when the United States manufactured and sold everything anyone could want and the failure of the League of Nations was clear to all, anything seemed to be better than what was and the “Liberal International Order” was born. The Soviets, while not liberal in any sense of the word, had a wonderful constitution reworked by Stalin in 1936 to include all the rights possible to deny a citizenry.

The Nuremberg Trials began and the United Nations and other international organizations were established to encourage free trade, human rights and “rules” by which countries would act. Borders were redone in Europe to punish the Germans and reward the Soviets, vast amounts of German ethnics outside of Germany were made to leave their homes, Jews, surviving from the Holocaust, were put in Displaced Person’s (DP) camps in Germany since no country would take them and the world - or the European and more advanced Pacific world – started to recover and grow.

The Jewish DP problem was solved once Israel was established, the German ethnics ended up in Germany and the Chinese civil war raged, as Mao, who kept his forces safe from the Japanese battled Chaing Kai Shek’s ravaged forces throughout China. This was all part of Stalin’s strategy of “sacrificing” western-allied fighters in the war against fascism while the communists waited in safety. This is what happened in Warsaw as the Soviets advanced, encouraging an uprising amongst the Polish underground while keeping the Communist members out of the fight, allowing the Nazis to slaughter as many pro-western fighters as they could, before they Soviets moved in and finished the job.

Making a long story, short, by 1950 the iron curtain fell across Europe, Mao defeated Chaing, the Marshall Plan rebuilt free Europe and there were two nuclear powers staring each other down.

At this point, “territorial integrity”, “national sovereignty” the red phone and the United Nations Security Council were important concepts and tools in keeping the world safe from a nuclear conflict. The Korean War was fought after the Soviets stormed out of the Security Council giving up their veto and allowing the United States to approve a UN led force to fight in Korea but direct combat between the Soviets and Americans was avoided. Vietnam was heating up and nuclear war was avoided by making sure US and Soviet forces didn’t directly confront each other. Battles arose in South and Central America, the middle east and Africa - and let us not forget Cuba.

But the Cold War ended by the strategic thinking of Ronald Reagan, the moral leadership of Pope John Paul II and accident that brought Gorbachev to the top of the Soviet Union.

It was at this point that a new world order needed to be established and President George H. Bush understood that. However, his “new world order” was just a continuation of the same order with the same rules and the same organizations that existed before. Instead of helping form a defense organization of former Soviet satellites, the Baltic States, Poland and Ukraine come to mind, they expanded NATO. We now have a NATO that has no real power outside of the United States as they try to figure out a way keep the Russians out of Germany. That Latvia depends on the goodwill of Belgium and the Netherlands in the NATO alliance was never going to work and the assumption that America was always going to be there was naive. Cold War Europe needed America, post cold war Europe, needed Europe.

Bush’s new world order was the same as the old world order without a global communist movement. Building on Nixon’s China opening America only saw the vast Chinese market and eventually, cheap Chinese labor. The same people who didn’t take Communist expansionism seriously in the Soviet Union, didn’t take Communist expression seriously in the Chinese Communist Party. Deals were what was important. The sociologists told us that all you had to do was build a middle class and everything would fall into place.

Add more rules, include more countries in the “rules-based order” and take those rules very seriously - especially the sanctification of (mostly colonial era) borders and the insistence that free countries fight only by the book. With one hand tied behind their backs, western countries allowed the CCP to intrude in all areas of western, especially American society. With one hand tied behind their backs, free countries, especially Israel, fought terror as if it was the rules and not the lives of their citizens that were important. Nothing symbolizes this absurdity than the fact that the October 7 Nuchba terrorists of Hamas are being readied for trials not in military courts with fewer rights and obligations, but in actual criminal courts with all the rights of the “accused” and obligations of evidence that the prosecution must abide by.

But of course, it is the UN and the EU and State Department (until Rubio came) and the Hague that demand that the “rules” that are meant to maintain stability and avoid chaos are used instead to foment chaos and encourage terror. The same people who for years have yelled “respect other cultures” at the top of their lungs refuse to respect actual cultures and who assume that “our” rules will become “their” rules if only we would set a good example – or at least if only the Jews would set a good example.

Here is a suggestion for a new rules based international order that is backed up by the power of free countries. . this new order will have two sets of rules – one for the law abiding, free countries and another for the tyrannies and the terrorists. Pretending that tyrannical regimes ought to be treated like free countries is a lie. We lock up criminals and deny them rights in order to protect the law abiding and international criminals, be they terrorist leaders or presidents of terror supporting countries, need to be treated by a set of rules that denies them basic rights.

“Territorial integrity” and “national sovereignty” are wonderful rules as long as they are used in ways that further freedom and make sense. Once a country or an organization resorts to terror and threats to destroy a free country, those concepts no longer have validity. Iran under the Islamic Revolutionary government that uses its cash to build terror networks and plan genocide has no right to territorial integrity or national sovereignty. Hamas and Hezbollah, as long as they are being harbored in Gaza or Turkey or Qatar have no rights and the countries that harbor them now need to dealt with the “other” rules – not the ones for free countries. The same applies to the narco-terrorists in Mexico or Venezuela. Attacks on these countries and groups ought not to be considered as infringements on their sovereignty or their territorial integrity.

Honesty and integrity demand two sets of rules for international relations, one set for use between free countries and another for use between free and tyrannical countries. Institutions such as the International Criminal Court, which has done nothing to enforce any laws or customs let alone deter tyrants need to be disbanded if there is any hope of saving the free world from itself.

We are now entering the second quarter of the 21^st century and it is still not too late to create an international order that is based on truth and integrity and supports freedom and civilization against those that want to destroy both. The time has come to stop treating tyrants as equals and stop justifying their use of “legitimacy” to foment evil and chaos.

May 2026 be the year in which we start to meet this challenge.