Rebuild, Don't Restore: The World Order After the Storm Warnings

Margaret MacMillan on the end of the rules-based order, and where I disagree

This is a conversation with Margaret MacMillan, a historian and emeritus professor at the University of Oxford. Her latest work focuses on the collapse of the rules-based order we lived in until recently, and its replacement with something much more chaotic, unstable, and dangerous. They discuss why today is as significant as the biggest milestones of the 20th century, whether current American foreign policy is here to stay, and what the long-term consequences of the war in Ukraine might be. [Link to the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOyW_XgEvpI&t=1239s]

The wrong comparison?

Most people reach for the 1930s when they look for a precedent. MacMillan, who has spent her career on the moments that changed the 20th century, thinks the better parallel is the period before the First World War.

"I think we're more like the period before 1914 than the period before 1939."

Her reasoning is about mood. In the 1930s people feared a coming war and rearmed. Before 1914, many Europeans believed they had moved beyond war and were too civilized for it. Most went on their summer holidays as usual, and some had to rush home when the war arrived. The risk she sees is a habit of explaining the warning signs away.

"Unfortunately, I think now politics is taking interest in us."

What made 1914 so hopeful, and so fragile

The 19th-century order was imperfect, but it produced real optimism. MacMillan describes the Concert of Europe, the growth of arbitration, and the first great wave of globalization, when trade and interdependence led many to argue that war between great powers had become pointless. Nationalism and the arms race ran underneath all of it.

Her worry is that today the formal and informal norms are being broken, and that example is contagious. The invasion of Ukraine breached the postwar taboo on seizing territory, and she expects others to follow.

Spheres of influence are no solution

Asked whether the old order is worth saving, she argues that the alternative is worse for everyone, including the strong. She sketches a world of spheres: the United States dominating the Western Hemisphere, China dominating Asia, Russia pressing on its neighbors, and Europe diminished.

"Spheres of influence are never stable."

The people inside them resent it, and the borders between them have no neat lines. The Pacific is an obvious flashpoint.

Can American power last?

MacMillan is most direct on the United States. She lists damage to universities, cuts to research funding, a hollowed-out senior officer corps, and the alienation of close allies such as Canada. Her point is that power involves more than hardware.

"Power has to be maintained and it involves a lot of things. It's not just the hardware, it's the allies, it's the values, it's how you manage your affairs."

On whether this is a temporary aberration, she hopes so but fears not. Even if a future administration restores the old behavior, trust takes a long time to rebuild. People she has spoken to in Ottawa think it could take a generation.

My take: closer to 1918 than to 1914

I read the moment differently. MacMillan is right that the old order is breaking, but I think we are closer to 1918 than to 1914. The question now is what we build next.

The settlement of 1919 did not deliver the peace the world needed, and its central failure was enforcement. Enforcement will be the central issue again. That is why I prefer "rebuilt" to "restored." Restoring the old order means restoring its weaknesses, and rebuilding leaves room to do better than 1919 did.

The United Nations system should be the foundation, but it needs to change. The five victors of the Second World War will have to share more power with other nations, or the system will keep losing legitimacy. They are unlikely to volunteer. That is where middle powers come in. They can push for reform of the veto, and they can build enforcement capacity outside the Council, so that the rules do not depend on the consent of the very states most likely to break them.

None of this is certain, and it will take political will that is not yet visible. But the alternative MacMillan describes is a world nobody can live in comfortably, and that is reason enough to start building.