Can we escape this global “age of monsters”?

The headlines scream about a changing world. The rise of populist leaders, the decline of global trade partnerships, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war in Gaza, and the specter of new great power competition all paint a picture of an international order on the brink of collapse. .

But beneath the surface of these dramatic events runs deeper currents. French historian Fernand Braudel uses the concept of hierarchical temporality to provide a framework for understanding these complexities, one that puts current events into perspective and explains what is being transformed in international space. It provides a framework for distinguishing between what is changing and what is not.

Braudel proposed three different layers of historical analysis. “La longue durée” (long term) is characterized by slow, almost imperceptible changes over centuries or millennia. “la conjuncture” (conjuncture) involves broader changes lasting more than a few decades. and “l’histoire événementielle” (history of events), the realm of immediate events and political drama.

Adopting this perspective makes us realize that what we have witnessed over the past few years may be more than just a “history of events.” The rise of China, the weakening of American hegemony, and the collapse of the global economic order are not just temporary events but symptoms of deeper changes.

Adopting a Braudelian framework shows that the changes of the past decade or so do not portend a decisive change in the international order over the long term. The fundamental drivers of international politics remain unchanged: nation-states, anarchic state institutions, power struggles, the pursuit of security, and the pursuit of prosperity.

Rather, viewed through Braudel’s lens, recent events show that we are witnessing the definitive end of one “union” and the painful birth of another in the history of the international order. It suggests.

The dying Union order, of course, is the Liberal International Order (LIO) that the victorious Allies built after World War II. This order is a collection of norms, rules, and institutions, such as the United Nations, the Bretton Woods system, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, that aim to govern international politics in a way that prevents the recurrence of the conditions and policies that led to the horror. It was. About the first half of the 20th century.

In the field of political economy, the LIO championed free trade, but the free trade system was tempered by Keynesianism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of globalization, Keynesianism disappeared and neoliberalism (nearly unlimited free trade) emerged.

In the field of warfare, the LIO also established a series of important norms. Those two were fundamental. These are the “war of aggression” norm, which criminalizes the use of force for territorial conquest, and the “war of self-defense” norm, which legally justifies a nation’s use of force in response to an armed attack. .

However, this order has been under considerable stress for some time. Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci said, “The old world is dying, and a new world is struggling to be born. We are living in a time of monsters.”

This dynamic is perhaps most evident in the field of international economics. China’s rise as an economic power, combined with its mercantilist practices and promotion of an alternative global economic structure, has significantly weakened the LIO’s free trade legitimacy. In fact, LIO has been renamed Rules-Based International Order (RBIO), implying a more minimalist and decidedly less liberal political and economic order.

The most frightening manifestation of this erosion of norms concerns the principle of “aggressive wars,” a cornerstone of the postwar order enshrined in the United Nations Charter. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a notable example. Russia’s justification for the invasion – “denazification” and protection of breakaway republics – has been widely condemned as a fabricated pretext for territorial expansion.

This blatant act of aggression, launched by a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council, calls into question the entire concept of a rules-based international order. If great powers can so easily ignore the principle of inviolability, what does that mean for small nations? Thucydides’ maxim: “The strong do as they will. A premonition of a return to a world dominated by “.” The problem of “the weak must suffer” looms large.

The norm of “war of self-defense” faces unique challenges in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This code guarantees the legal and moral right of all states, regardless of size or power, to defend themselves against armed attack. But the intense scrutiny and criticism Israel faces when exercising this right against Hamas threatens to erode the broader norms themselves. Although the question of the proportionality of Israel’s response and civilian casualties is complex and debatable, excluding Israel in territorial defense undermines the principle of self-defense of all states and, as a result, undermines the foundations of international order. and create a dangerous situation. This is a precedent for the right to self-defense to be conditioned by political winds.

The specter of a new world order looms. If we want to avoid a world of Gramscian monsters, what is the alternative to the crumbling order?

If the past is any clue, this new order may resemble the “European concerto” system cobbled together after the Napoleonic Wars. Established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, this system saw major European powers (Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and France) act as a balancer, managing hostilities and maintaining a semblance of peace. . Although this order was flawed, it led to a relative stagnation of war between European states for almost a century.

In the 21st century, the emerging order could similarly return to great power management, with the United States, China, the European Union, and perhaps a resurgent Russia as key players. These powers could manage competitive dynamics in a multipolar world if they could agree on the rules of the road (think avoiding thermonuclear war or even resolving conflicts without resorting to tanks). There is a gender. The emphasis here is on the word “can”. A globalized economy and transnational threats like climate change require a level of cooperation not recognized in the old concert system.

The road ahead is likely to be rocky, with periods of intense competition punctuated by moments of reluctant cooperation. The LIO’s established institutions may be sidelined or repurposed to meet the needs of the new order. The new order is a world less attached to grand liberal ideals and more focused on the art of trading.

But among the potential dangers lies opportunity. A new kind of stability could emerge, one based not on American primacy but on a more balanced distribution of power. The Austrian politician Metternich once quipped, “When France sneezes, Europe catches a cold.” Perhaps in this new multipolar world, the great powers will learn how to sniffle, or at least develop mass decongestants.

Only time will tell what form this new order will take. But the unipolar moment is over and that remaining RBIO is on life support.

We have entered the Gramscian interregnum, the period between Broadley’s conjunctions. Will a monster of instability and chaos reign, or will we, based on an enlightened understanding of the new distribution of power, find ourselves with significantly less freedom than our predecessors, but still at least some peace and prosperity? Can we build a new order of character?

Andrew Latham is a professor of international relations at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, and an adjunct fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington, DC. @aalatham.