The global rules-based order is in tatters, China is playing the long game of strategic patience, Europe prefers the security of US vassalship, and the Global South is fragmented
By Yusuf Bangura
The unprovoked US-Israel attack on Iran is a cause for grave concern. We are now in the third week of the war. The Strait of Hormuz, which handles 20% of the world’s oil supply, has been shut, leading to a spike in oil prices; oil refineries are being bombed; and civilian infrastructure—most notably the water desalination plants in Iran and Bahrain—has been attacked.
In one of the defining features of the brutality of the war, 170 Iranian school girls were incinerated by U.S. forces in a “double tack”, or two strike, missile attack in the opening hours of the war. The UNHCR estimates that 3.2 million Iranians have been displaced. About one million Lebanese and 60,000 Israelis have also been forced to leave their homes. With the failure of America’s decapitation strategy to yield regime change, it is clear that the warring parties are now locked in a dangerous escalation ladder.
Under Trump, the U.S. has pivoted to the use of overwhelming force to attack countries whose regimes it deems hostile to American interests. International law or the rules-based order that the U.S. almost single-handedly crafted after World War Two is treated with disdain.
Frighteningly, there doesn’t seem to be any state that can constrain US behaviour. Even though the unipolar world has ended, the new countervailing power, China, is still playing a long game of strategic patience; European states seem to prefer the security of U.S. vassalship, even as Trump openly disregards their relevance; and the fragmentation of the Global South leaves individual nations vulnerable when facing a Trump administration intent on disrupting established global norms.
In short, the current configuration of power and interest-driven calculations suggest that the world may be sleepwalking into a crisis of unimaginable proportions. This war has once again shown how a sophisticated, hi-tech superpower can gravely miscalculate a war and plunge an entire region and the world at large into chaos.
Given Israel’s strategy of destabilising and fragmenting Arab regimes in the Middle East in order to enjoy regional hegemony, and the strong hold of the Israel Lobby in U.S. Middle Eastern policy, large parts of Iran could well turn out to be another Gaza, which has been turned into a rubble; and Iran’s asymmetric military strategy of spreading pain among the US’s regional allies could well drag the Gulf states into the inferno.
The rise and fall of legal constraints on the use of force
For much of world history, politicians and scholars have tried to craft rules, norms, and mechanisms to regulate the use of force in an otherwise anarchical system. The issue of balance—i.e. preventing one state from accumulating enormous power that threatens others—has always been central to the calculations of states, especially the great powers. As a global power without territorial ambitions in Europe, Britain functioned as the chief balancer in the 19th century—allowing it to prevent any single country from dominating the continent. While the balance of power regulated great power rivalry in Europe, it simultaneously allowed Europe to project power globally and conquer most parts of the world.
The high point of the balance-of-power system was the Concert of Europe of 1815-1914, which involved the use of congresses or Summits, in which the great powers (Britain, Austria, France, Russia, and Prussia) agreed to collectively manage conflicts on the continent. As part of the Concert of Europe, the Berlin Conference of 1884 allowed European powers to carve up and divide Africa among themselves without shedding blood in Europe. However, the emergence of rigid alliances and secret treaties among European states led to a breakdown of the balance-of-power system and the First World War.
The quest for a world in which the use of force was highly regulated or institutionalised received a shot in the arm after the First World War. While it didn’t strictly ban wars, the League of Nations sought to regulate it through a system of collective security. It required member states to respect the territorial integrity of all other states and prohibited states from going to war until they had exhausted three specific avenues: arbitration, judicial settlement, and Enquiry by the Council. And in 1928, under the Kellogg-Briand Pact, countries officially “renounced war as an instrument of national policy”.
Ultimately, these rules proved ineffective in halting German, Italian, and Japanese aggression or preventing the Second World War. However, the desire for a world in which states lacked the incentive to use unilateral force persisted, leading to the creation of the United Nations in 1945.
National sovereignty and the territorial integrity of states were affirmed in the UN Charter; the use of force was outlawed unless for self-defence; and the Security Council was given the sole power to determine when international peace and security have been breached and when states may use force. In short, the UN tried to monopolise rather than eliminate force.
However, the Security Council’s authority over the use of force fragmented during the Cold War, with the U.S. and its Western allies pitted against the Soviet Union and its largely Eastern European allies. Consequently, the UN was often unable to prevent the arbitrary use of force.
Historical data suggest, however, that there were fewer military interventions by the U.S. during the period of the Cold War than after it became the dominant power in a unipolar system—underscoring the importance of a balance of power in the prevention of unilateral wars.
Using data generated by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, Ben Norton, writing in Monthly Review Online, shows that the United States conducted 251 military interventions between 1991 and 2022–the period of unipolarity. This figure represents more than half of all military interventions (469) conducted by the U.S. between 1798 and 2022.
However, despite the United States’ high propensity to resort to force against foreign countries when it had no peer competitor, it still went to great lengths on many occasions to obtain UN approval for its military interventions. Under Clinton, Bush, and Obama, the U.S. remained outwardly committed to a rules-based global order, even though it circumvented those rules when it felt they didn’t serve its objectives.
The second Trump administration is unabashedly opposed to global rules and norms, as well as alliances that it does not dominate. It has withdrawn the U.S. from dozens of international organisations, dismantled its foreign aid programmes, and bypassed the WTO by imposing high tariffs on almost all countries. This approach marks a definitive break from the post-war consensus on a rules-based multilateral order.
More worryingly, the administration seems determined to unilaterally attack foreign countries, depose or seize heads of state, and exert control over the natural resources of countries it dominates. Trump has attacked a record seven countries within his first year in office, and has imposed a blockade on Cuba. This behaviour is a throwback to nineteenth-century-style imperialism, a return to a world where might is right and, as in the classical realist tradition, the strong do what they will while the weak suffer what they must.
The Trump administration is not only contemptuous of legal rules and norms; its key members—including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (who famously refers to himself as the ‘Secretary of War’), President Trump, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio—frequently employ violent rhetoric. Critics argue this language borders on the incitement of war crimes or the dehumanisation of the Iranian people.
Hegseth does sound like a psycopath in his press briefings on the war. Consider his statements on rules of engagement:
“This will be the opposite of the last twenty years. There will be no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmires, and no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives on ‘procedural’ wars.” (Press briefing 2 March, 2026)
“Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight… We are punching them while they are down, which is exactly how it should be”. (Press briefing, 4 March, 2026)
Hegseth has replaced the top military lawyers (the Judge Advocate Generals) of the American armed forces to prevent lawyers from influencing America’s combat operations. He has also abolished Civilian Protection Teams; and has advocated for maximum lethality and granting authority to the squad leader (E-6), who, he asserts, shouldn’t have to “call a lawyer in D.C.” before shooting.
Hegseth has no prior senior level expertise on defence or foreign policy, having spent the last decade as a talk show host on Fox News. He has been linked to Christian nationalist ideologies, and bears tattoos that feature symbols from the Crusades, such as the Jerusalem Cross, Deus Vult (or God wills it), and Kafir (the Arabic word for unbeliever).
The concentration of power among Trump, Hegseth, and Rubio has created a security apparatus defined by hawkishness and ideological fervour. This is particularly unsettling, given the lack of countervailing powers in the U.S. and externally to check their militarism.
China is playing the long game of strategic patience
As the new peer competitor to the U.S., China was expected by many to act as a constraint on American trigger-happy behaviour and the bullying of weaker countries. After all, China now has a larger economy than that of the U.S. on purchasing power parity terms. It also commands the largest share of global manufacturing and trade, and either leads or is competitive in many technological fields. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)’s Critical Technology Tracker of December 2025 notes that China leads the world in 66 out of 74 critical technologies, including in some areas of AI and semiconductors.
This economic and technological prowess is matched by its advanced military capabilities. China now possesses the world’s largest navy and is a global leader in hypersonic weapons, which travel at speeds exceeding Mach 5, and anti-ship ballistic missiles capable of striking warships from very long distances. It is reported that its Apex Predator drone swarms can operate autonomously even in situations where communications are jammed.
What is more, China is the only country that has created a comprehensive alternative ecosystem spanning finance, communications, global trade, infrastructure networks, and social media platforms. It possesses the capacity to challenge the United States, as demonstrated last year when it halted the export of rare earth products. This move effectively leveraged China’s supply-chain dominance to force a change in the U.S. policy of imposing punitive high tariffs.
However, rather than flex its military muscles to counter America’s quest for global dominance, China has opted instead for what geopolitical analysts call “strategic patience”. This strategy involves avoiding military confrontations with the U.S., while pursuing an aggressive policy of industrial upgrading and expanding its global economic influence and ties with countries in all regions of the world.
While the U.S. withdraws from or downgrades the role of the UN in its foreign policy, China is gradually moving in to fill the vacuum. Ironically, it is authoritarian China that now extols the values of rules-based multilateralism as the only legitimate framework for promoting global peace and security. There is, indeed, a profound disparity between the U.S. and its Western allies on one side and China on the other regarding military interventions.
After the United States, Britain and France—both of whom, like the U.S., maintain an extensive network of overseas military bases—lead the world in foreign military interventions, whereas China’s physical military footprint remains largely concentrated within its own region.
Remarkably, China has launched only one full-scale invasion of a sovereign country—Vietnam, for one month in 1979—since the People’s Republic was founded in 1949. By contrast, the United Kingdom was involved in at least 15 to 20 major military interventions globally between 1990 and 2018. France’s record is even more extensive, with 20 to 25 interventions in Africa alone during the same period—a figure that rises to 50 if the timeline is extended back to 1960. For decades, China’s overseas interventions involved sending only doctors and engineers to UN missions. This changed in 2015 when it sent an infantry battalion to the UN mission in South Sudan. Still, this was restricted to guarding UN bases, and protecting civilians and infrastructure.
Economic and strategic ties between China and Iran are deep and growing. China accounts for 80-90% of Iran’s oil exports; the two countries signed, in 2021, a 25-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for the development of critical infrastructure, such as the Qom-Yiwu rail freight line that was opened in 2024. Furthermore, in early 2026, Russia joined the two countries to conduct the “Maritime Security Belt 2026” exercises on the Strait of Hormuz. During those exercises, China deployed its Type 052DL destroyer and intelligence ships, signalling it was ready to project its military power in the Gulf.
China’s economy is, indeed, heavily tied to the Gulf; about 50% of its oil comes directly from the region. However, the Gulf States—not Iran— are China’s main suppliers, accounting for about 45% of its imports. Iran’s share is only about 15%. This hard economic reality largely explains the cautious approach Beijing has adopted towards the ongoing war in Iran. While it maintains strong ties with Iran, it remains careful not to alienate the Gulf States.
Having brokered the landmark rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023, China is reportedly acting as a backstage mediator to cool regional tensions and constrain Iran from targeting Gulf oil infrastructure. Significantly, China opted to abstain from the recent Security Council resolution condemning Iranian attacks on its neighbours, signalling a pragmatic refusal to let its alliance with Tehran harm its energy security in the Gulf.
While such behaviour is rational from the standpoint of China’s economic and strategic interests, it effectively grants the United States a free hand to operate in the region with little pushback from its primary peer competitor.
European states as loyal US vassals
Relations between Europe and the U.S. have been frayed since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025. With an authoritarian mindset, Trump is viscerally opposed to norms—and rules that constrain his choices. This mindset is at odds with the values of European leaders, most of whom embrace liberal democratic values, even when such values do not inform their foreign policies. Driven by his MAGA base that espouses a white, Christian nativist ideology, Trump and his government delight in lecturing Europeans about how their “woke” policies on immigration will end European civilisation.
Initially perceived as siding with Russia, Trump has also clashed with his European allies over the Ukraine war, which he believes was caused by Ukraine itself and the poor judgement of Europeans leaders and Joe Biden.
To make matters worse, Trump signalled in his National Security Strategy of late 2025 that the U.S. will adopt a policy of ‘strategic restraint’ in Europe, requiring Europeans to assume the primary burden of their own defence. This shift stems from a worldview in which the U.S.—following the collapse of communism—no longer views Russia as an existential threat to its own vital interests. Consequently, Washington now expects Europe to maintain stable relations with Moscow and take the lead in resolving the war in Ukraine.
European leaders have gone to great lengths to avoid criticising Trump, adopting a now-standard approach of appealing to his ego, offering trade concessions, and proposing solutions that prioritise U.S. interests. Even when Trump threatened to annex Greenland, the European response remained muted; eight states deployed only token troops for joint exercises while pleading with Washington to adopt a NATO-led Arctic defence plan. It is clear that European leaders have calculated they are not yet prepared to be weaned off the U.S. security umbrella. No single European power is currently capable of shouldering the burden of regional security, and the EU remains fundamentally an economic union—not a military one.
Amazingly, as the war with Iran erupted, European leaders were quick to align with Washington, condemning Tehran for its retaliatory strikes against U.S. and allied bases in the Gulf. Despite an initial rift, Britain and France have since provided critical military facilities to the U.S., even as Trump publicly rebuffed Prime Minister Keir Starmer, claiming American forces did not need ‘late’ British support. Furthermore, German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has mirrored the Trump administration’s hawkish stand on punishing Iran, suggesting that traditional international law has proven ‘ineffective’ against the Iranian regime’s security threat. This opportunistic alignment suggests European leaders hope their support in the Middle East will serve as leverage to soften Trump’s probable disengagement from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
A fragmented Global South
In the first days of the war, I listened to American economist Jeffrey Sachs on a YouTube channel, where he denounced the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and the complicity of Western powers. He noted that the British ambassador had blocked him from addressing the UN Security Council on the matter. Most striking was his observation that the U.S. and Europe, which support the war effort, represent only 13% of the global population; he appealed to the remaining 87% of the world to rise up and halt the conflict.
There is no doubt that if the Global South were to act as a purposeful, single entity, it would serve as a significant constraint on U.S. power. However, the Global South remains highly fragmented—a reality the Trump administration has expertly exploited. This fragmentation explains why Trump was able to impose a raft of tariffs on almost every nation without facing significant pushback, except from China.
Rather than acting collectively to reorder the terms of engagement, targeted countries chose to strike individual deals with Washington. These bilateral concessions have only bolstered Trump’s confidence that the United States can still dictate the rules of international relations outside of established multilateral institutions.
Amazingly, he has even launched an exclusive ‘Board of Peace’—effectively a ‘billionaires’ club’ designed to bypass the UN Security Council’s traditional role in maintaining global peace and security. While many major powers remain sceptical, several countries from the Global South have already signed on, lured by the promise of direct transactional access to the U.S. government. This shift signals a move toward a more ‘privatised’ diplomacy, where financial leverage and personal loyalty replace the multilateral norms of the post-war era.
One thing is clear: the collapse of the rules-based multilateral order, coupled with the absence of any effective countervailing power to U.S. militarism, has hollowed out the concept of state sovereignty. In this nascent world order, the message is unmistakable: no nation lacking a nuclear deterrent can truly consider itself secure.
Even though we live in a multipolar world, one of the two leading powers remains determined to use force to achieve its goals, while the rising power continues to play a waiting game, hesitant to directly counter the declining hegemon.
Natural resources—especially critical minerals—will be at the forefront of the new struggle for global dominance. Weak nations that hold such resources in abundance, particularly in Africa, risk falling prey to a new and more virulent form of imperialism. Consequently, the imperative to build regional and continental ‘superstates’ capable of countering this neo-imperialism has never been more urgent.
