Liberal international order is a new form of imperialism, it was created roughly by the end of 1989 because from 1945 till 1989, the world was dominated by two bounded orders that were realistic to the core. One was an order dominated by the Soviet Union it included institutions like the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. On the other side was the Western order led by the US including institutions like NATO, IMF, World Bank, and so on, which were mainly concerned with waging security competition with the Soviet Union. I believe that we did not have a meaningful, thick International order during the Cold War instead we had two bounded orders that were not international and were not liberal. When the Cold War ended by December 1991, the Soviet lead order went down and the US won, that is why it was so optimistic.
In the early 1990s’s The US took the Western-led bounded order and attempted to expand it into a liberal International order and US could do that because it was the only great power in the system at that time and it did not have to worry about the great power competition. The realpolitik had taken off the table for the US and it was free to pursue its ideological agenda (liberal agenda) and it is in the position to take the Western bounded order and turn it into a liberal international order. Advancements like NATO expansion, EU expansion, and the promotion of the Color revolution in Eastern Europe all are part and parcel of the US effort. It was broadening the concept of the Western liberal order into an international order and not a realist order but a liberal order. This enterprise was quite successful in the 1990’s. What went wrong was this whole enterprise containing the seeds of its destruction. Four ways this enterprise was doomed from the start.
1. It ended up turning China into a great power, the idea Ikenberry talked about was a ‘liberal bet’, to help China grow economically, make it prosperous, get it hooked on capitalism turn it Into a responsible stakeholder, and integrate it into institutions like the WTO. I believe this was insanity. This bet failed and the result was the US facing Godzilla. It no longer lives in a unipolar world Vladimir Putin resurrects Russians from the deal. It’s not only Chinese but Russians as well. No unipolarity means no liberal international order.
2. The US is heavily in the business of spreading democracy fighting unnecessarily and losing wars. Afghanistan war, the largest war in history, Colossal men in Libya and Syria, Iraq war. Furthermore US couldn’t fight the war against China and Russia but it tried to spread democracies into those countries as well and they didn’t like it at all. We all know that the US does not like The idea of Russians interfering in US elections Play don’t we think the Soviets and the Chinese feel that the US interfering in their domestic politics and trying to spread democracy and human rights in Russia and China is a violation of their sovereignty? That is exactly what they think. US liberal international order not only led to these unnecessary wars in the greater Middle East it also helped poison relations with Russia and China and gave them all sorts of incentives to undermine the liberal international order.
3. Globalization did a terrific job in wealth creation especially in China and US. However, there are a huge number of American people from the middle and lower classes who did not benefit from globalization and liberal international order. Many of these people are trump voters they are angry about tremendous economic inequality and are angry about the fact that they lost their jobs and can’t find better or new jobs so globalization might have helped China become a pure competitor and it might have helped people who are well off to become wealthier but the average Americans to do a lot.
4. Then finally there’s a question of open borders, Liberal international order promotes open borders. The famous Schengen agreement in Europe is a manifestation of this. Liberal worldview tends to treat everybody as a part of an international community. This is bound to cause trouble in a world where nationalism is a really powerful force. This was reflected in the Brexit referendum and again was reflected in support for Donald Trump. You cannot have open borders or anything approximating open borders in a world where the most powerful political ideology is nationalism.
Now the question is where are we headed?
My basic view as to where we are headed is that we’re going to end up in a situation that is somewhat analogous to what we had during the Cold War. We are going to have an American-dominated order on one side and we’re going to have a Chinese-dominated order on the other side and those two orders are going to be principally concerned with wages in competition with each other this is not to say we won’t have a lot operation inside each of those bounded orders.
We will have cooperation inside those orders just as we had cooperation during the Cold War with the American lead western order and Soviet lead eastern order. But in terms of how those orders interact with each other, that’s where the security Competition will take place as was the case during the Cold War. On top of that, we will have a thin international order which won’t be liberal, that thin international order will include China, US and Russia. Just as we had the thin international order during the Cold war That included the US and the Soviet Union but once you are in a world with two bounded orders engaged in security competition with each other you are basically saying in effect that The liberal international order is no more.
The author, is a recent graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations. With a keen interest in International Security and International Political Economy.
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