THE WORLD NEWSREEL
OUR COMMENT ON THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION
THE SIX PRINCIPLES OF WORLD ORDER
Why International Law Is Becoming Incoherent
October 25, 2026 | Strategic Affairs — The Editorial Desk
I. TWO POWERS, TWO GLACIS
Consider two maps.
The first depicts Russia and its western approaches. Ukraine and Belarus form the geographical space separating Russia's European heartland from the military powers of Central Europe. Their political alignment determines the strategic depth available to Moscow.
The second depicts the United States and the Western Pacific. Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and the successive island chains form a strategic perimeter through which American power is projected and the expansion of rival military power is constrained.
The geographical configurations are different. One is predominantly continental; the other maritime. Yet the underlying strategic calculation is remarkably similar.
Neither power defines its security interests exclusively by reference to its sovereign borders.
Both regard the military and political configuration of neighbouring regions as a matter of national security.
This observation does not establish which territorial arrangements are legitimate. It identifies a problem that contemporary international law has never satisfactorily resolved: what principles determine the legitimate organization of international space?
The answer depends upon which conception of world order we adopt.
And there is more than one.
II. THREE MODELS OF LEGITIMACY
Modern international relations are governed by three competing principles of legitimacy.
1. The Realist Model — Kissinger
In World Order (2014), Henry Kissinger returned to a fundamental proposition of classical diplomacy: international order depends upon an equilibrium among major powers, each possessing its own historical experience, strategic interests and conception of legitimacy.
The relevant political units are not necessarily equal in power or influence. International stability emerges from arrangements that accommodate the distribution of power and prevent any single actor from overturning the system.
Its underlying principle resembles constitutional checks and balances, transposed to the international level.
Just as a constitutional system distributes authority among competing institutions, a realist international order distributes effective power among competing geopolitical centres.
Its hard core is equilibrium among great powers and their strategic spaces.
2. The Idealist Model — Wilson
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points of January 1918 expressed a fundamentally different conception.
The legitimacy of international order rests upon the right of peoples and political communities to determine their own political destiny.
In its universalized form, this principle applies independently of the distribution of military power. A small nation's political independence cannot be made conceptually subordinate to the strategic requirements of a larger neighbour.
The relevant unit is the people or nation-state, not the great-power system.
Its hard core is self-determination.
3. The International Democratic Model — Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced a third conception, particularly through his Four Freedoms of 1941 and the ideological objectives of the Second World War.
International legitimacy could no longer depend exclusively upon sovereignty or equilibrium. The internal political character of states also became relevant.
Freedom of expression, religious liberty, freedom from want and freedom from fear supplied an emerging international vocabulary of fundamental rights.
In its subsequent development, this conception associates legitimate international conduct with democratic institutions, constitutional government and human rights.
Its hard core is the conformity of political authority and its actions to internationally recognized democratic and human-rights principles.
These three models need not be mutually exclusive. But neither do they necessarily produce the same conclusions.
A territorial arrangement may satisfy the requirements of strategic equilibrium while conflicting with self-determination. A sovereign political decision may conform to national independence while conflicting with a democratic conception of international legitimacy.
Thus the first problem of international law is already apparent: different principles may produce different judgments concerning the legitimacy of the same political situation.
III. THREE MODELS OF INTERNATIONAL ENFORCEMENT
There is, however, a second question, logically distinct from the first.
Even if the legitimate principles of international order could be agreed upon, who would maintain that order?
Here again, three competing models can be identified.
1. The International League Model — The United Nations
Order is maintained through an international organization representing the community of states.
Its institutions establish procedures, formulate collective decisions and authorize measures for the maintenance or restoration of international peace.
The United Nations represents the most developed historical expression of this model, although its Security Council incorporates important great-power privileges.
2. The Hegemonic Model — The American Security System
Order is maintained principally by a predominant military power possessing the capacity to enforce international arrangements.
In the contemporary American experience, this function is associated with the global military establishment, the Pentagon, overseas bases, security guarantees and worldwide operational capabilities.
International order depends not merely upon agreed rules, but upon the military capacity of a hegemonic state to sustain them.
3. The Classical European Model — Spheres of Control
Order is maintained through the coexistence of great powers exercising effective control or predominant influence within their respective strategic spheres.
Rather than requiring a universal institution or a single global enforcer, this model relies upon reciprocal accommodation, territorial arrangements and limitations upon competing interventions.
Its historical reference is the classical European international system, including the traditions of the balance of power and the Concert of Europe.
Once again, these are not necessarily exclusive arrangements.
Roosevelt himself combined an ambitious conception of international freedoms with a proposed system of great-power enforcement. His original Four Policemen envisaged the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China as the principal guardians of postwar security.
The future United Nations thus emerged partly from a combination of universal institutional aspirations and the recognition of unequal geopolitical power.
IV. THE NINE POSSIBLE ORDERS
The distinction between principles of legitimacy and mechanisms of enforcement produces a simple analytical matrix.
| Legitimacy / Enforcement | International League | Hegemonic Power | Spheres of Control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Realist | Collective management of great-power equilibrium | Hegemonic stabilization of the balance | Reciprocal great-power accommodation |
| Idealist | Collective protection of self-determination | Hegemonic protection of national independence | Territorial autonomy secured by reciprocal restraint |
| International Democratic | Multilateral enforcement of democratic and human-rights standards | Hegemonic enforcement of democratic standards | Differentiated political orders within respective spheres |
These nine combinations are ideal types, not nine mutually exclusive historical systems.
Indeed, the actual positions adopted by states may be understood as variable combinations of all six principles.
Each government, political movement or international institution may adhere more or less strongly to the hard core of each model, producing a particular configuration of legitimacy and enforcement.
A state may invoke self-determination in one dispute, strategic equilibrium in another, and international democratic legitimacy in a third.
It may simultaneously demand enforcement by the United Nations, rely upon the protection of a hegemonic military power, and insist upon freedom of action within its own regional sphere.
Such combinations are not necessarily the result of deliberate inconsistency.
They may reflect the simultaneous operation of different conceptions of world order within the same political and legal system.
V. THE COMBINATORIAL DISORDER
This brings us to the distinctive predicament of contemporary international law.
The usual explanation for the present disorder is that the international community has abandoned the principles upon which the postwar system was constructed.
But perhaps the opposite is closer to the truth.
The crisis may result not from a shortage of principles, but from their proliferation and simultaneous application.
The contemporary international system contains elements of Wilsonian self-determination, Rooseveltian international democracy and Kissingerian equilibrium.
It also contains institutions of collective security, structures of hegemonic military enforcement and persistent spheres of strategic influence.
These principles survive together, despite the fact that they originated in different historical circumstances and rest upon different conceptions of political legitimacy.
They are neither fully integrated into a coherent constitutional order nor arranged according to an agreed hierarchy.
Consequently, different actors can construct plausible but conflicting accounts of the same international event by selecting different combinations of principles.
The disagreement is no longer simply about the interpretation of a particular rule.
It concerns the underlying conception of international order from which the rule derives its meaning.
VI. THE RETURN TO GEOGRAPHY
We may now return to our two maps.
Russia's western glacis and America's Pacific perimeter illustrate the continuing relevance of the realist conception of strategic space.
The competing claims of neighbouring political communities introduce the Wilsonian principle of self-determination.
The political character of governments, the international protection of rights and the institutional commitments of democratic states introduce the Rooseveltian conception.
Finally, the question of who may legitimately preserve, modify or enforce these arrangements introduces the three competing mechanisms of international order.
The result is not a single controversy governed by a single set of principles.
It is a conflict among different combinations of legitimacy and enforcement.
This is why contemporary debates about international law so frequently seem to proceed in parallel rather than converge upon a common answer.
The participants are not always disagreeing about the facts. Nor are they necessarily disagreeing about the text of particular international instruments.
They may be reasoning from different constitutional conceptions of the international system itself.
The resulting incoherence is therefore structural.
The contemporary crisis of international law is not simply the disappearance of world order.
It is the simultaneous operation of several potentially incompatible principles of world order, none of which has succeeded in establishing an undisputed priority over the others.
We live not in a world without principles, but in a world governed by too many competing principles claiming authority over the same events.
And perhaps that is the most revealing feature of the international situation today.
P. G. Monateri
CI-CLE — Critical Legal Enquiry Cardozo Institute
The World Newsreel — Know today the truths of tomorrow.
Historical references: Henry Kissinger, World Order (2014); Woodrow Wilson, Fourteen Points Address (January 8, 1918); Franklin D. Roosevelt, Four Freedoms Address (January 6, 1941); Roosevelt's proposals at the Tehran Conference (1943).
