by Edward Marks
Status Societies and the Rule of Force
There has always been some form of “international affairs,” even in very early days when mankind was sparse on the ground and separated into smallish communities which only occasionally bumped into each other. These groups or clans were organized primarily on the basis of kinship, societies in which extended family membership is vital for social and legal action. These were (and are) status societies in which a person’s role was pretty much determined by family and class.
Such societies obviously started small, but the essential internal dynamics persisted even when they expanded enormously into vast empires – from India to China to Egypt to the Middle East and later to the Western Hemisphere. Even the Roman Empire – the arch-type “state” to Westerners —began as a status society or clan writ large.
Such political entities essentially interacted on the basis of force, and military prowess and strength was the key element in both identifying the “state” group and establishing its relationships to other state. “Foreign affairs” therefore was essentially about either the threat of being conquered or the hope of conquering. In between wars and conquests, trade and marriages were the default relationship. However, all empires by a law of their nature worry about security at the fringes, as is evident in history, from Darius’ itch to punish and conquer the Greeks to Russia’s concern today about its borders with Europe. The guiding principle of international affairs, therefore, was expressed pungently by Thucydides that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” rejecting any concept of justice for raw power.
The Classical Greeks also introduced a new concept, that of the contract society in contrast to the status society, with citizenship being an individual status or right. Not of course for everyone, as “clan membership” was still important. But the Greek innovation did not outlast the Classical Period as the Athenians embarked on military empire building and the enormously successful Roman Empire reinvigorated the status model, albeit in a vastly enlarged manner.
Westphalian Sovereignty and the Beginnings of International Order
The next big change emerged in Europe following the European wars of religion during the 16th and 17th centuries. After the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1517, religious wars disrupted the political order in the Catholic countries of Europe. These wars culminated in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) which defined a new world order consisting of nation-states defined by populations and clearly marked territorial boundaries. These new political-social-economic entities were the new standard for political organization and came with an agreement that aggressive war between them was “illegal” (a new and widely accepted principle for international behavior—even though more honored in the breech than in the observance.)
The primary principles of this new international system were sovereignty and non-interference: each state gained exclusive sovereignty over its lands, people, and agents, establishing the norm against external interference in domestic affairs, a cornerstone of modern international law.
This was “A New World Order”, the first move towards a formal rules-based international order, by defining who were “legal” members. This was a significant and even revolutionary change in international relations. The treaties set a new standard for ending large conflicts through diplomatic interchange and congresses, creating a framework for future European diplomacy and balance of power. This European structure was then spread throughout the world with the global colonial expansion of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries as most of the rest of the world was incorporated into European colonial systems. It was the European state system writ large. The colonies were not themselves autonomous members but participated as “property” of the European members.
But it was also in many ways an unorganized system, rather like a school playground where the participants are “legal” but there are no overarching behavior rules. The inhabitants worked out direct personal relationships based on ever-changing perceptions of interests and relative power. “Individuals” were defined, but relationships between them were still essentially anarchic.
In the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, some permanent international organizations emerged. Early bodies were technical and administrative to manage globalization, such as the Universal Postal Union. But outside these limited, technical bodies, misperceptions were common, tension was always present, and wars often resulted. It all came to a bloody end in 1914 with the opening of Europe’s 20th Century civil war which expanded over the years into the global civil war of 1939-45 and then the Cold War.
The Emergence of a Rules-Based International System and Conditional Sovereignty
On January 6, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave the annual State of the Union speech to Congress—the famous “Four Freedoms” speech. The mood was grim. World War II had been raging for sixteen months, and Germany dominated the European continent, France had fallen in June 1940. Britain had narrowly escaped defeat with the evacuation of Dunkirk and suffered through the horrors of the Battle of Britain. And the war was spreading out of Europe and becoming global. The United States was officially neutral. FDR was looking to increase US support for the Allies, but he faced stiff resistance from a large part of the population who wished to avoid involvement in Europe’s war. His goal was simple, to persuade his fellow Americans that “the safety of our country and our democracy was overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.”
Thus began the effort to establish an agreed cooperative global system, a formal arrangement whereby relations between countries would be regulated by comprehensive rules and accepted standards, agreed upon and managed by a set of international organizations. In succeeding years, institutions grew out of this: the United Nations replaced the League of Nations in an attempt to establish law and order within the international state system. It was followed in the post-war years with a plethora of international bodies such as the World Bank and World Health Organization, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the International Monetary Fund, and many others.
Other innovations were introduced in different regions and countries—under the umbrella of the global system. One of the most robust of these developments was the creation and evolution of the European Union. The European Union’s enlargement process has arguably been Europe’s greatest contribution to world peace and stability in the past 50 years, a vast center of free people and free markets stabilizing a continent that was known for tribal and religious wars for millennia.
This historic development was labeled the “rules based international system” —sometimes called the “liberal order”—a term and concepts praised by many and attacked by others. It was paired with economic globalization, also praised and attacked. But it was the prevailing political and economic perspective throughout the remaining years of the 20th century. A new world political process existed, composed a collection of nation-states that communicated through the UN, plus NGOs, plus international firms, and a complex global web of government networks.
It was a world which attempted to establish “Conditional Sovereignty” for its individual nation-states. The CSCE accord in 1991 stated that responsibility to govern democratically and to respect human rights “does not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the state concerned” and that violations of those principals were of legitimate interest to the transatlantic community as a whole. That accord moved Europe another step away from the old principle of absolute sovereignty “towards the new principle of conditional sovereignty.” It was not a hierarchical system with an enforcing authority, but a consensual arrangement.
This US-led postwar order—for all its faults and mistakes – did not fail. It succeeded, as it aimed to facilitate the “rise of the rest” and in the view of many did so spectacularly. For 80 years the US was the underwriter for a system of globalization based on UN Charter principles, multilateralism, territorial integrity, sovereign equality. That system heralded an unprecedented and unique period of global prosperity and peace. Of course there were exceptions. And, of course, the Cold War was still in effect for at least half of the 80 years. But generally, for those of us who were non-communists, who ran open economies, who provided first world infrastructure, together with a hardworking disciplined people, there were unprecedented opportunities. This innovation fulfilled the wise and sober advice of theologian and philosopher Reinhold Niehbuhr to seek “proximate solutions to insoluble problems.”
The Contemporary Resurgence of Nationalism
But the result and the profits were not distributed equally, producing grievances and even anger. The interest to foster democracy produced positive results—but not everywhere and not always permanently. Dramatic population changes and massive migration threaten formerly stable societies as authoritarian movements grow. The assumptions that underlay the post-WWII era have been eroded and earlier ideas about nationalism have resurfaced.
As the world entered the 21st century, these concerns multiplied and unrest grew. With the end of the Cold War, the United States’ “Unipolar” moment first expanded and then passed. People and governments began to talk of a multipolar world and of “balance of power” between regional hegemons. The contours of a new global order are becoming dimly visible in the fog. These early efforts, led mostly by middle powers, are focused on trade diversification, autonomous regional security-building, and better leveraging domestic natural resources for national benefit. If these trends continue, the resulting reshaped order could be a complex set of interlocking dynamics—more bottom-up than top-down.
But even these changes are taking place in a world where one overriding change is operative—economic and technological globalism is pervasive. No country is an island unto itself.
Will the International System Choose Nationalism or Order?
“Power shifts are never easy” as Nadia Schadlow said in the March-April 2026 issue of Foreign Affairs. “A major shift is now underway, not between rival states but between two operating systems. One view holds that the most pressing issues of the day can be addressed only through a framework of global and supernational institutions and multilateral rules. The other insists that the nation-state remains the foundation of legitimate authority and effective action, and that outcomes ultimately depend on the decisions, capacities, and accountability of individual states.”
The world is now faced with an historic question: Does it want to retain the 20th century innovation of a rules-based political system or return to the schoolyard anarchy of the pure Westphalian system? More specifically, the question is posed for the United States, which was the primary motivator for the creation of the post-war international system—and it must be admitted, a major beneficiary of that system.
We are now seeing order challenged and chaos increasing in the twenty-first century. So where do we go from here? Where does political legitimacy reside? Are we going to act short-term and reinstate the nation-state competition of the pure Westphalian global system or attempt to strengthen and improve a rules-based system for the international community? The answer to that question will likely determine the world order for years to come. Anarchy, after all, is not only bad in the schoolyard, but also dangerous in the international system.
Ambassador Edward Marks’s Foreign Service career spanned 1956-1995 with assignments that included Kenya, Mexico, Angola, Zambia, Belgium, Zaire, and Sri Lanka. In 1976, he was appointed chief of mission to the Republics of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, followed by service as the State Department’s deputy coordinator for counterterrorism and as deputy US representative to the Economic and Social Council to the United Nations. Ambassador Marks was recalled to active duty in 2002-05 to serve as the Department of State’s advisor on terrorism to the US Pacific Command.