Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin may have, in their own ways — separately and perhaps together — upended the post-war rules-based international order, but the concept of cooperation to solve global problems can be saved, according to academics, diplomats and others meeting in New Zealand last week.
The Faltering International Rules-Based Order and New Zealand was the theme of the 60th Otago Foreign Policy School led by Professor of International Affairs Robert Patman and his colleagues specialising in diplomacy and security. The title was reminiscent of much of Patman’s recent work — a defence of countries, especially small and medium powers, working together as a counterweight to superpowers.
The Otago conference was against the background of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine — building on the failure to deter or turn back the 2014 annexation of Crimea — China’s readiness to ignore treaties such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and Israel’s war in Gaza and its fallout in international law, claims of genocide, and the latest war with the United States against Iran.
Yet it is usually President Donald Trump who more frequently cops blame for the upheaval in rules largely created by the United States at the end of World War Two: the United Nations, and global financial, health, and trade institutions — not to mention NATO and other alliances extending Washington’s global military reach.
“The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over,” the first US National Security Strategy of the second Trump administration said to set out an America First agenda where alliances were built on US interest, commerce, favourable trade, and greater burden sharing by allies — especially in defence.
A disordered world order
Time and again at the Otago conference, speakers often academics schooled in international law and history — brought up what they said was an illegal US and Israeli war (and attacks last year) on Iran; “genocidal” acts by Israel backed unconditionally by Washington; paralysis at the UN Security Council; and a might-is-right approach to diplomacy that left allies having to rethink ties to the United States.
Yes, China came up over the law of the seas, alleged abuse of world trade, and spying. Russia — whose Wellington embassy apparently watched the conference over Zoom — was critiqued over Ukraine and its threats to NATO neighbours. Israel had few friends evident, and some put Gaza and treatment of the Palestinians on the agenda.
One speaker, retired US Air Force Brigadier General and diplomat, David Stilwell, mounted a solitary defence of a benevolent United States and described Trump as “the most honest chief executive we have ever had”. I wrote about Stilwell here.
The Carney rupture
Many speakers saw a speech by Canada’s Mark Carney at the World Economic Forum as a potential turning point. He had talked of a “rupture” in the world order — an order he said had been a fiction we had been prepared to go along with. Carney urged medium and smaller powers to create new tactical alliances on issues that mattered to them and reject the risk of a Thucydides trap where “the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must”, as Carney described the idea.
Here’s a selection of quotes and comments from the 60th Otago Foreign Policy School that I found valuable. It is a tiny sample from three days of discussion:
- Patman opened the event saying New Zealand was “facing another major challenge which challenges the very foundations New Zealand's foreign policy is based on: rules and principles and not the arbitrary use of power.”
- Tahamoana Macpherson, deputy chief executive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said New Zealand was rapidly adjusting to a world order of “nationalism, polarisation, technology and the increasing blurring of boundaries…” He picked up the Carney theme, saying: “If we are not at the negotiating table…others may develop rules that fail to take our interests into account.”
- Dr Malcolm Jorgensen, of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, described the dilemma: “The rules-based order has indeed faltered in a very fundamental sense. We’re seeing the end of its hegemonic status…International relations has long been dominated by assumptions that liberal ordering was desirable, even inevitable, and certainly, that’s been the case in the post-Cold War era, and arguably since the Second World War. We’ve entered…a post liberal era.”
- Associate Professor Fadhel Kaboub of Denison University in Ohio, urged smaller countries to adopt a strategy of “resilience” — create alliances with fast-growing economies in Africa — and like the Carney recipe, spread risks more widely. “This is New Zealand’s strategic pivot in a fractured world, from global integration to strategic resilience,” he said. “What if New Zealand’s challenge is not really the rise of China and China per se, but it’s New Zealand’s dependence on a world order that no longer exists?… The challenge is not choosing between East and West, but redesigning New Zealand’s economy and foreign policy for an era of structural instability.”
- Professor Alexander Gillespie from the law faculty of Waikato University urged New Zealanders to remember the 1990s, when Wellington adopted an independent foreign policy and stood nuclear-free. “Be consistent,” he said. “Defend the system that we’ve got, be consistent with what we say. This means if we do call out Russia…we must not have name suppression and not call out America at the same point…Name suppression, whether it is America or China or any other country, should not apply. You do not defend the international system by being silent.”
- Professor Karen Scott, a specialist in climate-related international law from the University of Canterbury, described a three-stage strategy for a new rules-based order focused on climate change. “All law is climate law,” she said. “It’s no longer possible to argue that when developing or implementing any area of international law, that climate concerns are irrelevant or are confined to the climate regime.”
- Professor Treasa Dunworth from the University of Auckland, who has been a guest on the podcast The Hoon, was among those who zeroed in on the Gaza war and accused New Zealand leaders of failing to use their weight to condemn the scale of Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas incursion and killings. She described it as a legal obligation, not just a foreign policy stance. “Humanitarianism is not [just] about compassion, that’s good,” she said. “What we need to be talking about is legal obligations, not that we feel sorry for the Palestinians but that we demand that the international community step up and do something about it.”
- Professor Qinming Zhang of Beijing University, who also challenged many of the assumptions and assertions of the Stilwell speech, trod a careful line to avoid commenting on the great power rivalry of which China is now so much a part. Instead, he urged us all to protect principles of diplomacy — the ability to talk about difficult issues and in doing so avoid actual conflict. “Diplomacy is not international relations, it is the peaceful management of international relations, so where we talk about that failing of this liberal international order, I find that I worry about the future of diplomacy.” He urged more investment in diplomats and talking.
Of course I have simplified some of this, and there were many other speakers I could and should have included — not to mention expert questioners. It is a sample. Let me know, and I will also try to let you know when Otago publishes its own versions.
Good brief thanks Peter.
Thanks, Peter - a useful summary with you usual incisiveness.
Have you heard the interview with the new US Ambassador yet? Appointed by the 47th, with all the features that would imply.