LONDON- The horror in Israel and Gaza is a new blow to a fragile world. But the United States can prevent the rules-based order from collapsing if it keeps steering a steady course with regards to Russia and China. The biggest risk to that would be the return of Donald Trump as US president.
A week into the latest conflict in Israel, the risk is that fighting could spread to other parts of the Middle East or cause the administration of US President Joe Biden to pay less attention to containing Russian aggression and Chinese threats.
Global markets have reacted relatively calmly so far, with a modest increase in oil prices and a small decline in US government bond yields suggesting investors think the conflict will remain local. If the United States holds firm on its grand strategy, any new geopolitical risks should be similarly contained.
The rules-based international order is the catch-all term for the system that the victors of World War Two put in place with the aim of keeping global peace and advancing prosperity.
International treaties — with the United Nations Charter at their apex — were not enough, though. The system depended on American muscle.
One explanation for the current outbreak of crises is that the United States is weaker and more internally divided than it was during the so-called “Pax Americana” era. Malign actors are more willing to break the rules.
There is some truth to this narrative. It is plausible that Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine partly because he thought the United States lacked the will to fight after its chaotic retreat from Afghanistan in 2021. And the US is certainly less economically dominant than it was in 1960. At that time its economy accounted for 39 percent of global output, compared with 25 percent today.
But this tale is simplistic. For starters, Pax Americana — Latin for “American peace” — applied only to part of the world. And it wasn’t particularly peaceful. The Cold War spawned a series of bitter conflicts in Korea, Vietnam as well as the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, not to mention multiple wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Nor did the world witness peace after the Soviet Union collapsed. The United States and its allies were responsible for one of the worst breaches of global peace by invading Iraq in 2003 — a war that not only led to terrible destruction in the Middle East but undermined American authority and distracted Washington from China’s rising challenge.
Today’s conflicts — terrible wars in Ukraine and Israel, Chinese threats towards Taiwan, coups in Africa and the exodus of Armenians from Azerbaijan — are not yet as deadly as those of the Pax Americana era. What’s more, they have led some countries to try to shore up the rules-based order.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has not just provided Kyiv with $44 billion of military aid. He has also strengthened US alliances in Europe and Asia, rightly concluding that it cannot contain China and Russia on its own.
Meanwhile, the US -led Group of Seven large rich democracies has emphasized its support for the UN Charter — in particular, its prohibition on the use of force against other countries.
David Hannay, a former UK ambassador to the U.N., argues that the West’s only option is to intensify its defense of the rules-based order. – Reuters
