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Rules-Based International OrderFor thousands of years, major powers ruled through military force, expanding empires, extracting resources from colonized lands, and settling disputes through conflict—not diplomacy or law. After two destructive 20th-century world wars, leading powers worked with the broader international community to establish a system of institutions, treaties, and norms to create stability and prevent economic chaos and unchecked aggression. The United Nations was created in 1945 to replace the failed League of Nations and maintain international peace and security. The 1944 Bretton Woods conference established key economic institutions to manage currency, credit, and trade: the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was signed in 1947, which later became the World Trade Organization. The order is built on the argument that countries—of all sizes and clout—gain more from cooperation under shared rules than from pursuing their interests through force or economic warfare. Since its creation, global trade has grown significantly, extreme poverty has declined, and life expectancy has increased. Critics, however, argue that the institutions were designed to reinforce Western dominance and that the West's promotion of liberal democracy in rival great powers' spheres has caused more conflict than it has prevented.Explore Rules-Based International Order

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Russia's invasion of Ukraine accelerated fractures in the rules-based international orderThis piece examines how the Ukraine conflict intensified underlying divisions in the global order—between Western democracies and the Global South, and between rule-of-law norms and great-power politics. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 7 experts debate China's role in the future of the rules-based international orderThis interactive feature showcases opposing arguments—from scholars who view China as a major threat to the order, to Chinese analyst Wu Xinbo's argument that China will shape the order's evolution rather than destroy it. Lowy Institute The 1956 Suez crisis was one of the earliest tests of the rules-based orderWhen Britain, France, and Israel secretly invaded Egypt, the Eisenhower administration supported UN resolutions condemning the invasion and called for a ceasefire—publicly criticizing its closest allies to uphold the principle that force should not be used to resolve international disputes. US State Department Some experts argue that Russia was never effectively integrated into the rules-based order after 1991This piece argues that Russia's difficult relationship with the IMF and World Bank in the 1990s—characterized by economic shocks and perceived Western condescension—helped shape Moscow's later hostility toward the liberal order. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

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