THE FALL of the post-war, rules-based order heralds the end of many delusions. But among the more persistent ones is the notion of a common humanity.
That is ridiculous, because prior to the modern world, humanity consisted of various nations and empires fighting for space and territory. It still does.
This was one of the unspoken delusions of the Rules Based Order, the notion that there was one true definition for humanity with one true history, laws and moral norms, determined by 20th century liberal, Western ideology. China, Russia, Iran and various other countries beg to differ. Right, wing populists also want to beg to differ. And thus, we the order fractured.
But there’s another assumption hidden beneath, and it is that the world is binary battle of the good guys against the bad. Those who fought for the Rules Based Order were the good guys and those who fought against it, were the equivalent of Nazis in varying degrees.
This, too, is a delusion, because human groups don’t fight for morality or principles. They fight for tribe and wealth. They fight for their interests.
For example, in World War II, the Soviets did not ask their soldiers to fight for Socialism as an abstraction. They bound up their cause with Mother Russia.
And the same was true for the Global War on Terror. One of the reasons why it failed, I think, was because Americans saw no reason to fight to “spreading democracy” as they should.
So now that the sacred cows of the 20th Century are dead or dying, we can go back to the cynicism of realpolitik, and it’s this: self-interest is the governing principle of all.
However, because different groups have different interests, there won’t be a grand ideological unity like in the twentieth century.
Instead, what we will have is a patch work of transactional alliance structures pursuing their own interests in the context of realpolitik, and we are seeing this now, not only among America’s allies, but among the BRICS members as well./PN
