Might Makes Right or Right Makes Might

In a period of maximum volatility in international relations, there is increasing talk of a reset of the world order

Corina Cristea, 21.03.2025, 13:31

In a period of maximum volatility in international relations, there is increasing talk of a reset of the world order. We are living in an era in which we are witnessing the collapse of some pillars on which the global order was built, several experts argue. What role does the unpredictability of the Donald Trump administration, manifested since the first days of the new term, play in this equation? The increased customs duties imposed on Canada, Mexico, China, but also on the EU, the idea of annexing Greenland, the suggestion of transforming Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East, the US withdrawal from the WHO and the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump’s unexpected positioning towards Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. These all are decisions with a major impact at the global level, which have created the feeling that things as we knew them no longer exist. For international relations, this unpredictability means a reset of what has been called the world order, believes university professor Andrei Ţăranu:

“Of course, the concept of world order is a rather negative concept. The new world order did not bode well either before or after the Second World War. And this means that, in fact, from my point of view, we are moving from a model that we were used to in the last 30-35 years, that is, from a model with a single hegemony, of the USA, to what is called a multipolar world. And, for the first time, the United States accepts this multipolarity. Precisely because, although from my point of view it would have no reason, neither military nor economic, it accepts the Russian Federation as an equal dialogue partner and, equally, builds a target – China, which becomes the new maverick, the new world rebel. So we have an imbalance in this model of world order. (…) Now we are in a period of transition from unipolarity to multipolarity, without going through bipolarity, and the new actors are divided into much larger areas.”

Bloomberg wrote in February 2023, on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

“The Russian-Ukrainian war is quietly leading to a reset of the world order, where the US and China will play the role of main actors in a new status quo with geopolitical tensions and problems reminiscent of the Cold War period,”

And they added: “If the geopolitical situation that is taking shape seems familiar, it is because the world order that is being built in the wake of the war in Ukraine strongly resembles that of the Cold War – we have on the global stage a democratic world facing an autocratic one. International relations describe this geopolitical situation as “bipolar”, a term that refers to the two centers of geopolitical power during the Cold War, Washington and Moscow respectively”.

How pertinent is this analysis in a period in which we are witnessing a common voice of the United States and Russia on important issues, a voice different from that of the EU? And how prepared is Europe? The French Prime Minister recently declared in the National Assembly:“ We are witnessing an unthinkable alliance between Putin and Trump, which is marginalizing Europe on its own soil”. François Bayrou says that “we are witnessing the replacement of the law of the just with the law of the strong, and Europeans were not prepared for this evolution”.

University Professor Iulian Chifu, President of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Early Warning, told us:

“Of course, this dispute between Might Makes Right or Right Makes Might is old, since we started discussing the need to organize international relations and subject them to rules. Well, we are already seeing a return to power politics and great power politics. Power politics means the use of force in international relations. And Russia crossed the Rubicon in 2014, and 2022, for sure. And great power politics is the policy of bargaining between the big at the expense of the small, and bringing back to the forefront the capacity, the harsh and pure realism of the Trump 2.0 type, which means nothing more than folding the realities in the world on the basis of force relations and not at all on principles, on values, and in no case on the moral dimension. It is a change of attitude, it is an outburst of the powerful, who claim that they are being blocked by rules that are incorrect because they block the development potential – to be read here, in the case of Russia, also by the occupation of its neighbors – and, of course, it is a fight that is beginning and that will have to be carried to the end, but with instruments that are comparable.”

Hence, says Professor Chifu, and the need for the EU – a very large and rich market – to add to its military dimension, and to create coherence in its reaction capacity, and in ensuring the force instrument that would duplicate the rules, principles, values, to defend them and at least defend the states on its territory. As for Trump, he “is a revisionist of the rules-based world”, says Professor Chifu, he is an adept of the politics of force and the politics of power and great power, of bargains with other great powers, be it at the European or global level.”

Meanwhile, the “very horrible war” that the White House leader insisted he could stop is still ongoing, and Russia, under the leadership of Putin – indicted by the International Criminal Court as an alleged war criminal – while repeating that it wants peace, is not silencing its weapons, and is adding more conditions designed to paralyze Kiev’s capacity for resistance.