Americans emphasize the rules-based international order again and again but never explain what it is.

Short answer: the rules-based international order means transnational bodies, largely established by the victorious allied powers after WWII. These center around the United Nations.

Longer answer: after WWII, the US, especially, did not want to see the “war guilt” such as after WWI. They saw that the imposition of financial punishment on Germany by the UK, and France, especially all but guaranteed the rise of fascism and the Nazis, + therefore the even bloodier WWII less than 30 years later. As such, the US supported the establishment of an international order, centered around the United Nations, to do its best to prevent international disputes from developing into shooting wars.

Of course, the outbreak of the Korean War less than 6 years after the end of WWII drew the value of this entire enterprise into question. But, the establishment of such bodies as NATO- organising western Europe against a common enemy in the USSR**- and the European Common Market- predecessor of the European Union- served to prevent a major land war in Europe from 1945 until 2021. This was literally the longest time without a major land war in Europe in recorded history.

Therefore, I suggest that the rules-based international order was a rousing success. Was it inexpensive for the US to effectively shelter much of Europe and the world under a nuclear umbrella? Of course not, neither was it at all relaxed. But the cost in money would have been far exceeded by the cost in blood had WWIII followed WWII in close order the way WWII followed WWI.

** Looking back, we have the liberty of saying that the USSR + Warsaw Pact were far more interested in preventing the west from attacking them than in attacking the west. At the time, though, this was far from clear. See George Kennan’s “Long Telegram.”

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/george-kennan-sends-long-telegram-to-state-department

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