On ,22 January 2023, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, at the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland during an on-stage interview with CNN host Fareed Zakaria, called Russia’s attack on Ukraine a threat to rules-based international order and urged all the states in the West to stand against Russian aggression and unite for the protection of a rules-based international order, a point which I want to emphasize in the light of world history which is predominantly documented through a western lens.
The world has witnessed turbulent times again and again but has overcome that bad patch with a set of rules every time with this hope that it does not recur; however, there is a pattern in world history that whenever world peace has been disrupted, it has been re-established with a rules-based order, but not for a long time.
Let’s unpack the lessons we can learn from world history and how we can apply them in today’s conflict-ridden world.
When we cast our minds back across history, predominantly Western history, it should not surprise us that major conflicts have remained a recurring theme. What is heartening, however, is that the world has bounced back from a conflictual mode to a peaceful mode through collective support for a rules-based order. This argument can be substantiated by various phases in world history.
In the 17th century, the West faced catastrophic war when the Holy Roman Empire was split between orthodox Christians known as Catholics, believing in the discourse of Christianity prevalent in the Dark Ages, and modern Christians known as Protestants, believing in the ideals of the Reformation Movement inspired by the Renaissance. That war in history is known as the Thirty Years’ War. It lasted from 1618 to 1648. Initially, the war remained confined to the Holy Roman Empire on religious grounds, but soon it engulfed the whole continent, bringing in its wake Sweden, Denmark, and France along with many regions for political reasons.
In 1648, the West found a solution to the war in the shape of the Treaty of Westphalia. The Treaty of Westphalia is quoted as a first step in the development of a rules-based international order. The treaty introduced the concept of the modern nation-state system, principles of sovereignty and legal equality among the states, which not only became the underlying principles of the modern international system but also helped the West attain peace in a context back then where “might is right” mattered more than any other principle. Thus, peace disrupted in the 17th century was restored via a collective wisdom in the shape of the Treaty of Westphalia.
In the 19th century, peace in the West got off track when Napoleon Bonaparte, in the wake of civil war emerging in France after the French Revolution in 1789, declared a coup d’état in France and started expanding France by occupying surrounding states. This phase in history is known as the Napoleonic Wars which lasted from 1803 to 1815.
During the Napoleonic Wars, France occupied a major part of the West. The Napoleonic wars nullified the norms set in the Treaty of Westphalia for the maintenance of peace in the West. However, once the Napoleonic chapter was over after France’s failed attack on Russia, the big powers of that time including Britain, Prussia, Austria, Russia and France- though it had been defeated it was still considered a big power of that time- went for a series of meetings in the shape of the Congress of Vienna to restore peace in the West.
In the wake of the Congress of Vienna, a political alliance in the shape of the Concert of Europe among the big powers of that time developed in which it was decided that any aggression on the part of any state in the West would be responded to with a collective response. Here, one can again see how the West regained its peace through a collective approach by standing with each other for a rules-based order in the world.
Prudence dictates that we not repeat history by selectively applying a rules-based order, and that we stand together hand in hand for the protection of the global international norms, because by this approach we can save the world from the horrors of another big war. Especially, the West should never forget its significance because the entire Western history is witness to the fact that any deviation from a rules-based order has become a recipe for big wars.
Peace attained via the Concert of Europe started fizzling out toward the end of the 19th century because of power competition ensuing among European powers in the wake of western colonialism and imperialism, thanks to the rise of Industrial Revolution, and silence of Concert of Europe over the occurrence of small wars among various states, resulting in secret alliances among states, thus creating a pitch for first World War.
After losing millions of lives to the First World War, once again frantic efforts were made for the maintenance of peace via rules-based order, the centrepieace of which was the formation of the League of Nations, but the West found itself again in the jaws of the Second World War within just over two decades, followed again by a new series of efforts for rules-based order in order to maintain peace, with the formation of the United Nations.
The history of the world reveals one thing: whenever the world has faced collective instability, big powers of that time have relied on the development of a rules-based order for the attainment of peace, and many times this approach has worked effectively. It is in this context that one can better understand the position of former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin when she said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was posing a threat to the rules-based global order, and the world especially Western democracies should stand for the protection of the rules-based global order.
There is no gainsaying the fact that world has remained more peaceful when it has remained under a rules-based order and in this context Western states’ rebuke of Russia’s attack on Ukraine and their portrayal of Russia as a threat to globally developed norms for maintenance of peace merits attention; however, the West should not be selective in its advocacy for rules-based global order.
Currently, what Israel is doing in the Middle East, there we see stark violations of all international norms that the West developed for the maintenance of peace at the global level at different points in time, yet states in the West are divided over declaring Israel a threat to global international order or confessing that Israel is violating global international norms. This selective advocacy on the part of the West for the protection of a rules-based order does not carry good omens for world peace.
To cut the long story short, the world needs a rules-based order and the history of the world has proved that world has remained more peaceful when it has remained under one; however, selective advocacy on the part of western states at the moment for maintenance of a rules-based order, which is evident from their response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine and to the trampling of international norms by Israel in Middle East, does not bode well for world peace and will at some point push the world on the verge of another catastrophic war which will be followed again by efforts to attain peace through a rules-based order, as has happened in the history before.
Prudence dictates that we not repeat history by selectively applying a rules-based order, and that we stand together hand in hand for the protection of the global international norms, because by this approach we can save the world from the horrors of another big war. Especially, the West should never forget its significance because the entire Western history is witness to the fact that any deviation from a rules-based order has become a recipe for big wars.
