The death of the rules based international order
Biden's true legacy
A ceasefire has begun in Gaza. Israeli president Netanyahu has attempted to sabotage it, and it very much remains to be seen if it will hold. He and his sponsor, President Joe Biden, have overseen one of the most horrific, genocidal campaigns in recent history and they have nothing but shame to show for it.
The ceasefire represents one of the most profound defeats of a modern military by insurgents in recent history. The IDF claim they lost at least 400+ dead, and 10,000 casualties (all causes).1 For this cost, the IDF has accomplished none of its objectives, taken no territory, killed most of its own hostages, and failed to weaken the Resistance Axis meaningfully. Israel is becoming pariah state, becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage. Divestment and boycotts have hurt the Israeli economy badly.
Combine this with the IDF’s complete failure to disrupt Hezbollah, and you see that the only thing the IDF was able to accomplish was murder. Operation Al Aqsa Flood and the subsequent Palestinian resistance will go down as one of the most effective irregular campaigns in military history.
Among the rubble of Gaza and the tens of thousands of murdered Palestinians, lies Biden’s legacy: the death of the ‘Rules Based International Order’ (RBIO).
The RBIO as it is currently known, was established in the wake of the Second World War and the failure of the League of Nations. Contrary to popular opinion, the League was not doomed from the get-go but rather was undermined by a multitude of decisions and events ranging from the American failure to ratify participation, to the League’s ad-hoc definition of nationhood. The final blow came when the League abjectly failed its test to confront Hitler, but the system was by this time, already teetering.
It was the overwhelming hegemony of the United States in the post-1945 world that saw the birth of the RBIO with the United Nations at its center. It’s a nice fiction to think of the UN being formed by altruistic nations that, having destroyed fascism, established a system to ensure that it does not happen again.
The reality is that no nation, no holder of hegemonic power, has ever voluntarily relinquished power. The Security Council veto, the influence and control of American capital, and the weaponization of laws ensure the UN allowed the USA to continue its hegemony. They didn’t create a rules-based order, they created an order in which there are rules against opposition.
The International Criminal Court (ICC), another core component of the RBIO, has no enforcement arm for their legal decisions; it relies on member states. Thus the enforcement of these laws ultimately relies on the hegemon’s agreement to enforce them. Therefore at its center, the RBIO has never been more than a pleasant fiction. It relies on people believing in it and adhering to its rulings.
Like Santa Clause.
The list of American Presidents that have flaunted international law is as long as the list of Presidents. If the Nurenburg Trials precedence2 was applied to American Presidents, each would hang. However, it was George Bush who started the chain of behaviors that would cause unbelief in the RBIO to take hold. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 in the face of opposition from the UN starkly demonstrated the lack of enforcement power behind the curtain.
Iraq didn’t destroy the illusion, but it did irreparable damage. It proved that the United States is above the law, because the law exists at the pleasure of the United States. There were no consequences for breaking with the United Nations whatsoever, the American Government continued in its invasion, destabilized the entire Middle East, and killed one million people.
Had this been an aberration, perhaps the RBIO would have survived, but it wasn’t. Barack Obama conducted a drone murder program that lasted throughout his presidency that blatantly violated American as well as international law. So much for his joke of a peace prize, he and his vice president made sure to make the death of the RBIO a bipartisan issue. He ran on a platform of closing the wildly illegal Guantanamo Bay prison; it remains open 24 years after 9/11.
Obama got a pass on violating international law because he was charismatic or something, but the seeds had been sewn. He ran against a man who spent his first career dropping napalm on people, so perhaps the bar was low to begin with. The first Trump presidency saw much of the same; the assassination of Qassim Soleimani in Iraq was probably the most notable, but there was no shortage of other examples.
However, as odious as Trump was (and will continue to be), his horrors are much more focused on Americans and residents of the USA, and as such he did considerably less damage to the RBIO than Joe Biden. It was Joe Biden that truly delivered the coup-de-gras.
The Russian Invasion of Ukraine gave the clearest example of the true powerlessness of the RBIO. The UN tried passing resolutions against it, but when one member of the Security Council is the invader, and one is the primary sponsor of the invaded, no movement from a council with veto power could ever be expected.
At first at least, the RBIO tried to fight back. A few Russian Generals whose formations hit civilian targets were charged, as was Vladimir Putin. As the war crimes and violence spiralled out of control, however, not much else happened. Both sides have deliberately targeted civilians, both have used death squads, both are alleged to have used chemical weapons3, both sides have tortured and murdered POWs, and both sides have destroyed critical infrastructure to the detriment of the planet (EX: Nordstream II).
There are only so many times we can side-step that American (and Canadian) weapons are in the hands of avowed Nazis too. The rest of the world notices when every other propaganda picture of Ukrainian troops has a swastika or Sonnenrand. Or, for that matter, that the plucky freedom fighters of the new Syrian regime keep being seen with ISIS Velcro patches on them.
The response to the invasion demonstrated the new borders of the RBIO. Much of the World was paying attention when the USA flaunted the UN. Given that the Invasion of Iraq is so fresh the follow-on conflicts are still burning, many nations saw a Russian Invasion as just another invasion, not a uniquely evil or terrible event.
Because it isn’t.
The war is bloody, and ultimately unnecessary, but the reality is that when you have made excuses for murder and invasion around the world, nobody cares about your pearl clutching or the fact you’ve selectively grown a backbone. The response of the West, be it the acceptance of refugees, sending of volunteers, or the massive spending on arms, all stands in abject contrast to the response when non-white people are invaded. It’s not a coincidence, and the rest of the world sees that.
This was laid bare when Azerbaijan invaded Armenia in September 2022. Armenia being Russian backed, there was no outcry when the Azerbaijani Army invaded, no arms and support to Armenia, and massive sanctions wielded against the offender.
As late as 2024, the US Government is still whining about other countries emulating them in Ukraine. They engage in performative outrage at Chinese economic support for Russia, and DPRK’s material and manpower support, all while they pump billions of dollars and thousands of mercenaries into Ukraine. No irony will be tolerated in the American Empire.
However, all of these hypocrisies pale in comparison to the damage the USA’s favorite puppet, Israel has done.
The Gaza Genocide has been reported as such by:
· The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
· UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
· UN Human Rights Office
· Medecins Sans Frontieres
· International Criminal Court
· University Network for Human Rights
· Common decency
· All Palestinians
· Many other organizations
When South Africa brought forward a complaint to the International Criminal Court on the accusation of Genocide, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Australia and of course, the USA opposed it. Even now, several of these countries have said that, in response to the arrest warrants issued for Benjamin Netanyahu, they would not arrest him.
The Germans led the way on this, stating that because of its history, Germany could not arrest the President of Israel. I’m not sure supporting another fascist genocide is the “never again” anyone had in mind, but Germany’s weapons industry has never looked better.
Israel was allowed to go on with its genocide for fifteen months. In that time they have openly targeted civilians, journalists, children, medical staff, and hospitals. They have openly engaged in genocidal rhetoric and deed. The concentration camps they have made feature appalling violence, torture, sexual violence, and degradation. It has used AI to target civilians, used sabotaged beepers to maim and murder, starved Gaza, invaded Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank. There has not been a more textbook case of genocide in our lifetimes, and it is all supported and funded by the US of A, and especially Joe Biden.
The Gaza Genocide laid bare the RBIO’s ultimate failing: the rules it is based on are American rules. Turns out, relying on the morality of the country in which the most likely way for a child to die is being gunned down in their classroom isn’t a path to success.
Everything that happened in that horrendous fifteen months has reinforced every one of the worst actions of others. The Russian Invasion of Ukraine nearly looks rational when you realize what the Americans will tolerate from one of their allies. The Azerbaijani troops murdering captured Armenian soldiers seems a tiny horror among the horrors Israel has accrued.
Joe Biden will go down in history as one of the most bloodthirsty presidents in American history. He openly lied about the beheaded babies propaganda, and the mass rape propaganda, both of which have since been disproven. He has dumped billions upon billions of dollars into wars that are all collapsing around him. If he goes down as anything else, it will be because there is no low that is too low for the American Empire.
It also isn’t like he couldn’t have restrained Israel and also maintained the American strategic situation in the Middle East. Ronald Regan, the neo-liberal great Satan himself, even restrained the Israelis when they invaded Lebanon in the 1980s. Biden could have at least ensured the genocide is not done with American hardware, but instead, he gifted extra to get the job done.
In fact, Biden is so murderous that he has been outflanked by none other than Donald Trump. The Israeli negotiators (if you can call them that) have said in no uncertain terms that it was Trump’s pressure that made Netanyahu cave to the ceasefire. Trumps intentions, his rationale, and his own ideology only matter so much when the bombs that were falling yesterday, stop falling. He is evil and will do much more damage before he is out of office or in the ground, but this ceasefire, if it holds, is a good thing.
The Rules Based International Order is dead. It was killed by the Israelis, supported by the Americans, and nobody will morn it but they who did the killing.
On a personal note, I can only watch in true admiration of the Palestinians, both resistance fighters and civilians. They fought one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East, armed with the best tech in the world, to a complete standstill. The legacy of the Palestinians in this nightmare is one of survival, courage, resilience, and resistance.
I am in awe of them all.
Ian, January 19, 2025
Further Reading
Amnesty concludes Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
A Cartography Of Genocide: Israel's Conduct In Gaza Since October 2023 ← Forensic Architecture
Civilian mortality and damage to medical facilities in Gaza - PMC
This is just in Gaza. No casualty statistics in a war are reliable, but the IDF has a long history of lying about casualty figures, so treat these statistics as the lowest estimate.
The Nuremburg trials were, however, kangaroo courts established to give the punishment of the Nazis an air of legitimacy. I don’t care; the Nazis got better than they deserved anyways, but it’s objectively true.
This allegation has been entirely of a small scale, but is widely reported. If this was 2022 maybe people in the West would care, but attention spans are short aren’t they?
International law, like most law, is vibes based on the ability to impose conduct on individuals and groups, it’s just a whole lot closer to the sovereign citizen view of who it applies to.
I guess it's a toss-up for worst mass murderer when Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, while Biden had his bully friends do the evil for him. But Bush was a certified moron who did what Cheney and the Hawks told him, whereas Biden was in full control of his actions. Scum the lot of them.