Why war in Ukraine means the end of the liberal world order

With Russia’s invasion, the world’s ‘rules’ no longer apply

Vladimir Putin.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

On the afternoon of Aug. 5, 1990, President George H.W. Bush appeared at a press conference on the South Lawn of the White House. After reviewing developments related to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Bush took questions from reporters. The last elicited the most memorable words of the crisis, and perhaps of Bush's whole presidency. "This will not stand," Bush insisted, "this aggression against Kuwait."

Bush's awkward grammar and delivery made the remark an object of satire, most famously in the Coen Brothers film The Big Lebowski. It was memorable, though, less because it was funny than because Bush's words expressed a particular vision of international politics. Born in the wake of the Second World War but made plausible by the collapse of Soviet power, that vision promised an American-led world in which states would fight only in defense of recognized territorial boundaries, limiting their rivalries to economics, sports, and culture. In his address to a joint session of Congress in September, Bush would describe that vision as a "new world order". Others spoke of a "new global community", the "end of history", or the "rules-based international order."

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Samuel Goldman

Samuel Goldman is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard and was a postdoctoral fellow in Religion, Ethics, & Politics at Princeton University. His books include God's Country: Christian Zionism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and After Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). In addition to academic research, Goldman's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.