Every geopolitical order contains the seeds of its own demise, usually in the form of internal contradictions between its different elements. For the so-called liberal international order, one such contradiction, and ultimately its fatal one, was between the norm against the military conquest of foreign territory — the principle that international borders were not to be rewritten by force — and the conflicting norm to prevent genocide and other human rights atrocities, which can mean military intervention across borders.
Vladimir Putin, for example, justifies the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine by alleging, without any evidence, that there was an ongoing “genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime” led by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who he denounces as a Nazi even though he is Jewish. …..more
